The Dark Assassin

chapter Five
When Monk arrived home that evening Hester could see that he was in some mental turmoil. He was shivering from the river crossing, and he concentrated on warming at least his hands and feet before he even attempted to say anything beyond a greeting. He ate the bowl of soup she brought him, and gradually he stopped shaking.

She wondered yet again if they would have been wiser to have found a house on the northern bank of the Thames, even if the area was less to their liking.

When she had gone to Portpool Lane she had taken the omnibus westwards and over whichever of the bridges was appropriate, but since they were directly opposite Wapping, it made sense for Monk to cross by ferry and be at the police station in fifteen minutes or so. Sometimes the patrol boat picked him up directly from the steps.

But the cold was intense, and on a night like this, with its drifting sleet, she wished profoundly he did not have to be on the open water.

She sat opposite him, looking at the red glow of the fire on his face, the soup bowl in his hands, and wondered if it had been a good idea for him to join a regular force again. She had offered to apply for a regular nursing job at one of the big hospitals, even though nursing in those circumstances was actually almost nothing to do with the care of patients.

One was rather more like a domestic servant in circumstances where a usual household maid would refuse to go.

She had tried it, before their marriage, and it had made her full of zeal to reform the practice of hospital nursing after her experience in the Crimea. She had failed spectacularly, very nearly incurring legal action against herself for insubordination, and worse. But still she would have swallowed her pride and applied again if it would have helped. Monk had refused outright.

Now she looked at him relaxing at last in the chair opposite her, and worried that he was finding the obedience to authority harder than he had expected, and the restrictions and demands of leadership too cramping to both his nature and his abilities. She was trying to think of the words to ask him when he spoke.

"Sixsmith, who's in charge of the practical side of the tunneling, is certain that Havilland committed suicide when he couldn't cope with the claustrophobia of working underground," he said, watching her face.

She felt herself tighten, ready to argue, but kept her temper, waiting for what else he would say.

He smiled slightly, just an easing of the tiredness in him. "I went back to the Havilland house and spoke to the cook and one of the maids," he went on. "They said Havilland received a note that night, hand-delivered to the back door. As soon as he read it he burnt it, and then told the butler to go to bed and he would lock up himself."

"He was going to meet someone in the stable!" she said instantly, sitting upright and staring at him. "Whom?"

He looked rueful. "They had no idea. The envelope had only his name on it. The cook saw it briefly, and the maid who carried it doesn't read."

"Well, who could it be?" she said eagerly. At last there was something to grasp hold of. She felt a surge of hope, which was absurd. It should not matter to her so much. She had never known Mary Havilland. She might not have liked her in the least if she had. She was remembering her own grief, the feeling of having been bruised all over, stunned by confusion, when she had first stood on the dockside at Scutari and read the letter from her brother, telling her of her fathers suicide, and then her mother's death from what was termed a broken heart. She could not help imagining Mary Havilland feeling the same searing pain.

Except that Hester had believed it and Mary had not. Had Mary been wrong, making it harder for herself, and for her sister, by refusing to accept the inevitable? "Who could it be?" she repeated.

Monk was watching her, his eyes soft with knowledge of her pain.

"I don't know, except that since he immediately made arrangements to meet the person, it must have been either someone he knew or at the least someone he was not surprised to hear from. Nor did he seem to need to answer it, so whoever it was knew he would come."

"You must find out!" she said unhesitatingly.

It was unreasonable, and she knew it as she spoke, but he did not argue. Was that for her? Or was the anger at his loss, the sense of incompleteness, still raw inside him, too? Or worse, was it the challenge that he must be perfect at his new job, equal to his own vision of what Durban would have done?

"William...," she started.

"I know." He smiled.

"Do you?" she asked doubtfully.

His eyes were gentle, amused. "Yes."

However, in the morning Hester set out on her own path towards learning what she hoped would be both more about Mary Havilland, and something to further the cause in which she had promised to help Sutton.

First she called at the clinic in Portpool Lane to complete the books and ledgers and pass them to Margaret.

"That's complete and up to date," she said when she'd finished, suddenly finding it difficult to hide her emotion. She was going to miss the work, the struggles and victories, and most of all the people. The sense of loss was even worse than she had expected.

Margaret was looking at her, aware for the first time that there was something new and harsh still unsaid. "What is it, Hester?" Her voice was so gentle it brought Hester to the edge of tears.

How much could she say that it was Monk and not she who was forcing this decision?

"I have agreed to stay at home for a while," she began. "William's new job is... different." She swallowed hard. "You're managing very well now. Claudine is excellent, and Bessie. I could never raise money as you do."

Margaret looked stunned. "A while? How long a while?" She bit her lip. "You mean always, don't you?"

"I think so."

Margaret stepped forward and put her arms around Hester, hugging her tightly. She did not say anything. It was as if she understood. Perhaps, knowing Monk and remembering last year, she did.

Hester did not want to say good-bye to Bessie and the others girls, especially Claudine, but it would have been cowardly not to. She promised to call in occasionally, and she would keep her word. Monk could not object to that.

She left into the cold, sharp morning again, not as confident or light of foot as she had come. That was foolish, even vain. She must shake herself out of it.

She arrived at the Applegates' house still a little early for the most civil calls, especially to someone she barely knew. However, she had been in the morning room only a matter of minutes when Rose Applegate came sweeping in. She was dressed extremely elegantly, as if she was expecting important company. Hester's heart sank. Perhaps Rose's original enthusiasm was more an intention of kindness than a real desire to become involved, and Hester had misread it because she wanted to. Certainly Rose's high-necked gown with its gorgeous lace collar and tiny velvet bows on the skirt was up-to-the-minute fashion. By comparison she herself was dowdy. She was acutely aware of the social gulf between them. It seemed at the moment an uncrossable abyss.

"Good morning, Mrs. Monk," Rose greeted her, her curious face alight with pleasure. "Has there been news? Is there something we can do?" Then she looked a trifle self-conscious. "I'm sorry, that is most discourteous of me. How are you?" It was not customary to offer refreshment of any kind at this hour, and it seemed Rose observed the proprieties exactly. The room was formal; the maid had been immaculate in starched cap and apron. The hall was already polished and swept. Hester had smelled the pleasant, damp aroma of wet tea leaves scattered and taken up to collect the dust, and of lavender and beeswax to shine the wood.

"Good morning, Mrs. Applegate," she replied. "No, I'm afraid there is little fresh so far." She had nothing to lose by telling the truth. It was probably all lost anyway. "My husband learned a bit more about Mr. Havilland's anxieties, but if Mary's father found out anything precise, we do not know what it was. According to Mr. Sixsmith, who is in charge, he had something of an obsession about enclosed spaces and finally became quite irrational about it. Mr. Sixsmith said that was what finally unhinged his reason and brought about his death."

Rose was clearly startled. "Good heavens!" She sat down rather suddenly, disregarding the crumpling of her skirt, and motioned for Hester to sit also. "That sounds so terribly reasonable, doesn't it? But it's not true!"

Hester recounted what Monk had told her the previous evening-at least regarding the cook's opinion of Mary, though not yet about the letter.

"That is the Mary I know," Rose agreed quickly. She leaned forward. "She was not a sentimental sort of person, Mrs. Monk. She was very practical and quite able to stand up to a truth she did not wish to hear, if it was indeed the truth. I don't know where to begin, but if you have any idea at all, please let us do something to establish her innocence."

"Innocence...?"

"Of having killed herself!" Rose said quickly, the emotion now clear in her face, her eyes very bright as though on the brink of tears. "And, if the account is true-God forgive me-innocent of having taken Toby Argyll with her. That is a terrible thing to think of anyone, and I refuse to let it be said by default, because it would be easier for us all to pretend it was over."

Hester was suddenly heartened. "What are the alternatives?" she asked. "What did happen? How can we demonstrate it so it cannot be denied?"

"Oh, dear!" Rose sat bolt upright. "I see what you mean. If it was not suicide, then it was an accident, or it was murder. That is a very dreadful thought."

"It seems to me to be inescapable," Hester pointed out.

The door opened and Morgan Applegate came in. His eyes went immediately to his wife, then to Hester. He was polite and, to judge from the expression on his face, pleased to see her. However, there was something faintly protective in the way he went to Rose and remained standing by her chair, as if, without even giving it a thought, he would make certain Hester did not somehow distress or disturb her.

"How are you, Mrs. Monk?" he said agreeably. "Has there been progress so soon?"

Rose swung around to look at him. "In essence there has, Morgan," she replied. "We came face-to-face with irrefutable logic, and we must go forward. Actually, Mr. Monk allowed the possibility of accident, but I do not. Two such accidents-it is absurd. Either Mr. Havilland and Mary both took their own lives, or Toby Argyll tried to kill Mary and fell in himself."

"Rose...," he started to say, his face now heavy with concern.

"Oh, it's inescapable," she said, brushing aside his interruption, and turned again to Hester. "The question is: Who killed Mary? And it must be whoever killed James Havilland."

"Your logic is at fault, my dear," Applegate said gently, but his voice was quite firm. "According to the police, there was no one involved in poor Mary's death apart from Toby Argyll, and he, poor man, went off the bridge with her. If he was responsible, then he has already paid the ultimate price."

Rose looked at him patiently. "You have missed the point, Morgan. I am not concerned with trying to have someone pay! I wish to clear Mary of the sin of suicide, and of Toby's death also, if any might suppose she meant to pull him over. And I want to vindicate her father as well, which is what she wanted above all things."

"But-" he started.

"And possibly even more important," she went on, as if he had not spoken, "I want to show that they were both right in their fear of some terrible accident, so that we can still prevent it. So you see we are anything but finished! Is that not so, Mrs. Monk?" She turned her steady, bright gaze on Hester.

"Rose!" Applegate said exasperatedly. "You are placing Mrs. Monk in an impossible position! Please, you must not embarrass her."

"I am not embarrassed," Hester lied quickly. "But if I were, it could hardly matter! We are speaking of other people's deaths, and of the possible deaths and mutilation of scores of men, even hundreds, if there should be a major cave-in or a flood."

"You see?" Rose said with finality. "We must do everything we can, and we shall begin by learning whatever it was that Mary already knew."

Applegate looked at Hester with some desperation. "You seem to have an understanding of logic, Mrs. Monk. Either you are right or you are mistaken in this. If you are mistaken, there is no point in pursuing it, and you may damage the reputations of good men who have already suffered deeply in the loss of those they loved. I speak in particular of Alan Argyll." He spread his hands. "But if you are right, then he has been the cause of Havilland's death, and now of Mary's and his own brother's, albeit he did not intend the latter. Surely you must see that in that case he is a most dangerous man and will not hesitate to harm you if he has the chance. And please do not be rash enough to suppose you can outwit him!" He turned to his wife, touching her shoulder. "And for you, my dear, I am afraid I forbid you to endanger yourself in this way." He smiled-a sweet, gentle gesture that lit his face, making his emotions unmistakable. "Or in any other way."

Rose's eyebrows shot up. "Good gracious! What on earth do you imagine I am going to do? Go down a sewer and accuse some engineer of carelessness? Or perhaps visit Mr. Argyll in his mourning and tell him I think he is a murderer? Really, Morgan, credit me with a little sense! Mrs. Monk is primarily concerned with the safety of navvies, and that is a very right and proper thing for a member of Parliament's wife to care about as well-especially the wife of the member who is most involved with this work." She rose to her feet and stood facing him very patiently. "I shall be sociable and charitable. Mrs. Monk does great work for the poor and has served with Miss Nightingale, nursing soldiers. Who more appropriate to take with me when considering the injured?"

He looked bewildered. She had robbed him of argument, and yet he was obviously unhappy. Hester wondered why he was still quite clearly afraid for her.

"I promise you we shall not behave inappropriately," Hester said to him, wishing to make him feel less apprehensive, but also knowing that without Rose's knowledge of Alan Argyll and of what Mary had already discussed, she had little chance of success.

There was something Applegate wished to say, and yet obviously he felt restrained. He looked at Rose again. "Please be careful."

"Of course I shall be careful!" she said with the very slightest edge of irritation. "I am merely going to visit some of the men who have been injured in the past, and to whom Mary might have spoken." She looked at Hester. "What could we take them that would be useful and not condescending?"

"Honesty," Hester replied. She took a deep breath. "And perhaps a less fashionable gown?"

"Oh!" Rose blushed, glancing down at her beautiful dress. "Yes, of course. This is quite inappropriate, isn't it! Will you excuse me for fifteen minutes? I'm sure I can find something better. Morgan, please don't spend the time trying to persuade Mrs. Monk that I am not suitable for this task. It would be humiliating for me. I like her, and I wish to impress her as competent." She gave him a dazzling smile and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, my dear."

Hester mastered her expression with difficulty, reaching very quickly for a handkerchief and coughing into it to hide her smile.

Morgan Applegate blinked also, but he did not say anything.

After Rose had changed, Hester suggested that although it would take a little longer and definitely be a great deal less comfortable, it would be wiser if they were to travel by public omnibus rather than in Rose's carriage. The day was viciously cold, with intermittent sleet and snow piling in dirty drifts at the edges of gutters and walls and causing the drains to overflow, so everything was wet underfoot.

"Of course," Rose agreed, her face reflecting momentary distaste. "I shall appreciate my carriage more next time, I suppose." Then she realized that Hester almost certainly did not have a carriage. "I'm sorry!" she said, a tide of color washing up her cheeks.

Hester laughed. "I had a carriage before I went to the Crimea," she told her. "Before the war my family had very comfortable means."

"You lost it in the war?" They were walking briskly down the street towards the omnibus stop.

"My father did," Hester replied as they passed two women going in the opposite direction. "He was cheated out of it by a man who made a fortune doing that. He was an ex-army officer invalided out. A hero, so people trusted him."

There was a quick sympathy in Rose's face, but she did not interrupt.

"My father took his own life." Hester found it difficult to say, even so many years after. "But there was no question about it. He felt it was the only honorable way to act... in the circumstances. My mother died shortly afterwards."

"Oh!" Rose stopped still in the street, ignoring the spray of icy water from a passing carriage. "How unbearable for you!"

"One has to bear it," Hester replied, taking Rose's arm and moving her away from the edge of the curb. "Doing something helps a great deal. The days pass, and it gets better. Do you think that was what Mary Havilland was doing?"

They started to walk again.

"No-no, I don't think so," Rose said gravely. "She was... too excited. She grieved terribly for her father, of course, but she really believed she was going to prove his innocence-I mean of... Oh!" It was a wail of horror at herself. She was aghast at her own clumsiness in piling one pain on top of another.

Hester was forced to smile. There was a ridiculous humor to it, in spite of the tragedy. "I never thought my father acted dishonorably," she said truthfully. "In his mind he was paying the price for his error."

"What happened to the soldier who...?"

"He was murdered, very violently, by someone else he had... robbed," Hester answered, then changed the subject. "What was Mary like? Please tell me the truth, not what kindness dictates because she is dead."

Rose thought for a long time, in fact until they reached the omnibus stop and stood side by side waiting.

"I liked her," she began. "Which means that my opinion is probably not accurate. She was brave in her opinions, and in fighting for what she cared about. But she was afraid of certain kinds of failure."

"I think we all are," Hester agreed. "There are things we can afford to lose, and things we know we can't and still stay whole at heart."

Rose looked at her, then lowered her glance. "I think Mary was afraid of being alone, but also of marrying someone she did not love. And she did not love Toby. I am not certain if in the end she even liked him. She preferred the safety of being a good daughter. She did that superbly."

"And she thought there was no risk in it," Hester added.

"Exactly." Rose met her eyes again. "But she never thought of her own danger in defending her father. I think her courage may have cost her her life."

"You think Toby meant her to go over the bridge?"

"I know the Argyll brothers only socially. We've met maybe a dozen times in the last few months, but anyone could see they were very close. Toby was clever and ambitious. Alan was proud of him."

"But Alan was a success already?"

"Very much. He is quite wealthy. And well regarded, so my husband says." She frowned. "Actually, his company's record of safety is excellent, better than that of many other companies. If Mary found anything untoward, then she must have been either very lucky or extraordinarily clever."

The omnibus arrived and they climbed onboard awkwardly, struggling to hold wet skirts out of the way. They did not continue talking until they had found seats and the horses moved off again.

"Then it won't be easy," Hester observed. "I cannot help assuming that Mary was unusually intelligent and of a very practical turn of mind."

"Yes, absolutely," Rose agreed. "In fact, she was a little unfeminine in her grasp of logic, mathematics, and such things as engineering. At least she was told so, and I think she believed it."

"Did she care?"

"Yes. She was a little self-conscious," Rose admitted. "She was defensive about it, so I suppose that means she did. But that is the thing-the week or so before she died, she was more fully herself than ever before! She had realized that she had her father's gift for engineering and was happy with it." Her face was very earnest. "Mrs. Monk, she really was not going to kill herself!"

"Even if she had discovered her father to be mistaken?" Hester hated having to say it, but it would be not only dishonest but destructive of all they hoped to do, for themselves and for others, to conceal it now.

"I believe so," Rose said without hesitation.

The omnibus reached the end of the line. They dismounted and walked briskly around the corner to the stop for the next one, which would take them as far as the hospital where most injured men would have been taken after the collapse of the Fleet sewer. On this journey they discussed tactics and decided that Rose should begin the conversation as the wife of a member of Parliament, but when it came to medical details, then she would ask questions as Hester prompted her.

It was a long time since Hester had been inside such an institution, but it was exactly as she remembered. In the long hallway she smelled again the forced cleanliness masking the odors of sickness, alcohol, coal dust, and blood. Almost immediately she saw junior doctors, excited, self-conscious, walking with a mixture of arrogance and terror that betrayed the fact that they were on the verge of actually practicing surgery, cutting into human flesh to heal-or kill.

She found herself smiling at her own innocence in the past, imagining she could change everything except for a few individual people here and there.

It took them half an hour to gain access to the appropriate person. Rose was magnificent. Standing a little behind her, Hester could see her hands knotted with tension, and she already knew Rose well enough to be very aware of how much she cared, however much she might lie with candid and superb ease, at least on the surface.

"How kind of you, Dr. Lamb," she said charmingly when they were in the chief surveyor's office. "My husband wished me to learn a few facts so that he will not be caught out if asked questions in the House."

Lamb was a middle-aged man with a quiff of sandy-gray hair and rimless eyeglasses, and not quite as tall as Rose, so he was obliged to look up at her. "Of course, Miss... Mrs. Applegate. What is it the honorable gentleman wishes to know?"

"It's really fairly simple," Rose replied, still standing in front of his desk, thus obliging him to remain on his feet also. "It is a matter of the nature and frequency of serious injuries to men involved in the work on the new sewer system."

"Absolutely vital!" Lamb said earnestly. "The state of public hygiene in the city of London is a disgrace to the Empire! Anyone would think we were the edge of the world, not the center of it!"

Rose drew in her breath, then let it out again. "You are quite right," she agreed diplomatically. "Quite right. It is so very important that we must be absolutely certain that we are correct in all we say. To mislead the House is an unpardonable sin, you know?"

"Yes, yes." He nodded, pushing his eyeglasses up to the bridge of his nose. "What is it you wish from me, Mrs. Applegate? I am sure figures are already known from the companies concerned."

Rose and Hester had already decided on the answer to that. "Naturally, but they have a powerful interest in the number of injuries being as low as possible. And there is the world of difference between an engineer's estimate of an injury and a surgeon's."

"Of course. Please be seated, Mrs. Applegate. And Miss... Mrs?"

He waved at Hester without looking at her.

"We would like specifics," Rose continued, sitting upright with a ramrod-stiff back and smiling at him. "Descriptions of actual injuries, and the names of the men concerned, so that it is apparent that we have investigated the matter more than superficially."

Lamb looked uncomfortable.

Rose waited with an air of expectancy, eyes wide, her mouth in a half smile, ready to beam upon him if he should do as she wished. "As full a list as possible," she added. "So we do not seem to be singling out any particular company. That would not do."

Reluctantly Lamb reached into his waistcoat pocket and took out a small key. He rose, opened a file cabinet, and from one of the drawers took out a folder of papers. He returned to the desk and read from them selectively. "I cannot see what use this will be in the House of Commons," he said finally.

He had described accidents and injuries in the blandest terms, using laymen's words, making them seem slighter than they were. Rose might not know that he was being evasive, but Hester did. She spoke for the first time.

"There was an Albert Vincent. His right leg was crushed when a load overturned on him, breaking his femur, I think you said in two places."

"That is correct," he agreed, frowning at her, puzzled as to why she had spoken at all. He had assumed her to be there merely as chaperone, or perhaps a maid of some sort.

"You did not mention the treatment given him. Was that because he died?"

"Died?" He looked appalled. "Why ever should you think that, Mrs...?"

"Mrs. Monk," she supplied. "Because from the description, the load have torn the femoral artery, which would have meant he bled to death in a matter of minutes. If there had been anyone there on the scene to amputate the limb and rescue him, surely it would have been mentioned?"

He was clearly flustered. "The details are not there, young lady, and I hardly think it is something about which you would have any knowledge, even if you can read a little and bandy words around as if you understood them."

"Oh, she does!" Rose said with a sweet smile. "Mrs. Monk was in the Crimea with Miss Nightingale. She is acquainted with battlefield surgery, in the most distressing circumstances."

"You didn't say so!" he accused, the color now hot in his face. "That is, if I may be candid, most deceiving of you!"

"Is it?" Rose said ingenuously. "I'm so sorry. I had imagined you would say exactly the same to whomever you spoke to. Had she been of a delicate disposition and likely to faint, I would not have brought her, of course. But that is quite different. I cannot imagine what you would have said differently had you known Mrs. Monk is very practiced in such tragic and terrible things."

He glared at her but apparently could think of nothing to escape from the pit he had unwittingly dug for himself.

"I shall just make a few notes so that we cannot find ourselves mistaken. It would be dreadful to quote figures that are not true. And embarrassing," Rose continued, keeping her smile fixed. She looked straight at him; his face was tight-lipped, but he did not argue.

Outside on the steps, with the wind tugging at their skirts, victory seemed already fading. Rose turned to Hester. "Now what do we do?"

"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.

Scraping her hair back into a knot and clipping it tight so it appeared short was not difficult, but it was certainly unflattering. But there was no help for it. A flat cap on her head covered most of it anyway, even down over her ears. Sutton had been thoughtful enough to provide a thick woollen muffler that made her feel considerably warmer. The coat, which came almost to her knees, was the last item, apart from a pair of weather-beaten and awkwardly fitting men's boots.

She left the room where she had changed and walked self-consciously along the passage towards the staircase.

"Yer done wonders," Sutton said approvingly. "Come on, Snoot! We got business."

She explained to him as they walked what she and Rose had learned about Mary Havilland.

"That's funny," he said, considering it carefully. "Were she lookin' fer streams an' the like, or trying ter find out wot 'er pa knew, if 'e knew sum-mink ter kill 'im for? But why fer? Streams in't no secret, leastways if they cross one an' it makes a cave-in, the 'ole world's gonna know!"

"It doesn't make any sense," she agreed, walking quickly in order to keep up with him. "There's something major in this that we don't know. Either that, or somebody is very stupid."

They traveled by omnibus again, until they reached the northern entrance at Wapping. Hester was startled to see that the building in which it was situated was large and very handsome, so much so that she felt as if she were entering the hall of some concert chamber. She glanced sideways at Sutton, who bent and picked up Snoot, then solemnly carried him down the long, circular steps to the level below, where the tunnel itself opened onto something rather like a hallway. With a dawning of amazement she realized that no vehicle could get out into the open air. The only way up or down was the great stair.

Sutton put Snoot down and the little dog trotted obediently at his heels across the paved floor to the tunnel entrance. Because of the many windows there was plenty of light in this part, but Hester realized that as soon as they were any distance inside, there would be only such light as was afforded by gas jets.

"Stay close to me," Sutton warned. "There's lots o' folk down 'ere, an' most is 'armless enough, but the livin' is 'ard an' people fight for a scrap o' food or a yard o' space, so don't do nothin' but look."

She kept pace with him obediently. The light became dimmer as they progressed. The air took on a hazy quality, and she was acutely aware of the damp on her skin and the changed smell. The ceiling was far higher than she had expected and after a few yards it was lost from sight, giving a sensation of being closed in that was felt rather than seen. She knew that only a little farther on above it was the teeming, filthy water of the Thames. She refused to dwell on how the arch resisted the weight of earth and then the river itself, not to mention the currents and the tides.

The air smelled stale and was bitterly cold. But then one would hardly heat the tunnel with fires. There was no possible ventilation here. To create any sort of outlet to the open air would undermine the safety of the tunnel. If it fell in, they would be entombed here forever!

Hester chided herself for the ridiculous thought. If you were dead, they buried you anyway, so what difference would it make? Or perhaps Dante was right: death was not a ceasing to exist, but an endless journey through hell-a pit like this, full of strange, half-heard noises, whispers without words, not human anymore.

All senses were distorted. Damp clung in the nose and on the skin. There were gas jets on the walls, and in the dusklike light she could see people moving like shadows, most of them women. They seemed to be buying and selling, by touch as much as by sight in the flickering gloom, as if it were one nightmare arcade of stalls, a sort of hell's market. Sound was heavy and unnatural, a susurration of feet and skirts and snatches of voices.

"Don't stare!" Sutton warned her under his breath. "Yer 'ere ter catch rats, not sightseein', Miss 'Ester."

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "Who are they all? Do they come down here every day?"

"Most of 'em don't never go up," he answered. "We might 'ave 'alf a mile ter go."

"Whom are we looking for?"

They were keeping to the middle of the way, but as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom she was more aware of alcoves to the side. Those hollows must be where people might eat and sleep and-from the rank odor that now filled the air-conduct other aspects of their lives. It was a whole subterranean world, always damp and yet without natural water. She tried to ignore the scurrying of inhuman feet, the rattle of claws, or the pinpoint of red eyes in the shadows.

"People 'oo live in one tunnel often know things about other tunnels," Sutton said in answer to her question. "Everythin' 'ere 'as to be fetched from somewhere else. I'll find yer a tosher 'oo knows the 'idden rivers as well as the ones on the maps, an' mebbe someone 'oo knows a navvy or two 'oo's bin 'urt an' in't so quick to defend 'is old bosses. Jus' leave the askin' ter me, right?"

"Right." She said only the single word, keeping her voice low, as if the shadows could remember her. They continued deeper under the river, where the silence was broken only by voices so low that they seemed wordless amid the scraping and the hiss of the gas jets. Every now and then there was the clang of metal on metal or the duller thud of wood as someone worked. It was an eerie world where daylight was unknown.

Sutton pressed on, stopping now and then to greet someone by name, ask a question, make a wry, bitter joke. Hester hated it. There was no wind, no plants, no animals except rats and the occasional dog. Snoot trembled with excitement at the scent of so much prey, looking up at Sutton and waiting for the word that never came.

They had already spoken to five people and were nearly half a mile under the river when Sutton found the man he most wanted. In the yellow glare of the gas his face looked cast of metal. It was scarred down one side, his ear torn and his hair tufted where the scalp had been ripped away. He was lean, and his hands were gnarled and huge-knuckled with rheumatism.

" 'Alio, Sutton!" he said with surprise. "Not enough rats fer yer in the Palace, then?" He grinned, showing strong teeth.

" 'Alio, Blackie," Sutton replied. "I done such a good job they're all gorn. 'Ow are yer?"

"Stiff," Blackie replied with a shrug. "Can't get arter 'em fast enough no more. Got 'elp, 'ave yer?" He looked at Hester curiously.

"Not much use yet," Sutton told him. "But 'e'll do. In't built fer navvyin'."

Blackie looked at Hester thoughtfully, and she stared back at him, refusing to lower her eyes. Blackie laughed. It was a wheezy, cheerful sound. " 'Ope 'e's clever, then. 'E in't good fer much else, eh?"

Hester wanted to respond, but she remembered just in time that she could not mimic the accent she would have if she were really learning to be a ratcatcher. Nor could her voice sound like that of a boy of the height she was.

"Navvyin in't so clever." Sutton shook his head. "Too chancy these days. Railways are one thing, tunnels is 'nother."

"Yer damn right!" Blackie agreed.

Sutton looked at him closely. "Yer reckon one of 'em's goin' ter cave in, Blackie?"

"That's wot they're sayin'." Blackie curled his lip, making his lopsided face look less than human in the yellow light. "Word is 'em stupid sods is gonna keep on cuttin' till they cross a river an' drown 'alf the poor devils wot are diggin' there like a lot o' bleedin' moles."

Hester drew in her breath to ask him to be more specific, then gasped as Sutton kicked her sharply. She shut her mouth and bit her lip with pain to stop crying out.

" 'Oose works?" Sutton asked casually. "I don't wanna get caught in it."

"Go down, do yer?" Blackie squinted at him.

"Bin known ter," Sutton acknowledged. "Think it'll be Bracknell and 'is lot?"

"Mebbe. More like Paterson 's."

"Argyll?"

Blackie gave him a keen look. "You 'eard summink, 'ave yer?"

"Whispers. They true?"

"They move faster'n most, but Sixsmith's a canny bastard. Very careful, 'e is. But the engines wot 'e uses are big, an' stronger than most. I reckon they done summink ter 'em, made ' em better. Could slice through an old sewer wall an' bring a cave-in quick as spit."

Hester was aching to ask for details, but her leg was still smarting from where Sutton had kicked her.

"So I 'eard," Sutton agreed. "But I thought it were just daft talk o' some girl. 'Er pa were scared o' the dark or summink. Lost 'is nerve an' shot 'isself, they said. Mind, she never believed it. Said someone else done 'im in."

Blackie's eyes narrowed and he leaned forward sharply. "I'd keep yer face shut about that if I was you, Sutton," he said very quietly. "Stick ter rattin', eh? It's nice an' safe, an' yer know wot yer doin'. Don't go down no 'oles in the ground, an' don' go askin' no questions. O' course they 'ave safety rules, an' o' course they don' use 'em. Fastest one through gets the next contract, easy as that. Better buried alive fer maybe than starved or froze fer sure." He dropped his voice still further. "I owe yer, Sutton, an' I owed yer pa, so I'll tell yer for nothin'. Stick ter rattin'. It's clean an' yer don' upset no one but the rats. There's things about tunnels as yer don' want ter know, an' people in 'em sure as 'ell's burnin' yer don' want as should know you! One feller special, so keep yer nose ter yerself. Got it?"

Sutton nodded. "Mebbe yer right," he conceded. "Don't you go down no 'oles in the ground neither, Blackie. If they bump inter a river accidental, it in't gonna care that yer a tosher an' 'ave worked these ways all yer life. It'll come down there like a train, faster than a man can run, an' pushin' everythin' in front o' it."

"I don' go there no more," Blackie said with a twist of his mouth. "I know which ones is safe an' which in't. But yer listen ter me, Sutton! Water, gas, fire, an' rats in't all there is ter watch fer! There's money in this, so there's men as'd commit murder. Keep out o' it, see? Go, an' take that lad there wi' the eyes out of 'ere. I dunno wot yer come fer, but there's nothin' 'ere fer you."

"I reckon not," Sutton agreed. Taking Hester by the arm, holding her hard, he turned and started back the way they had come. They had gone a hundred yards before Hester dared speak.

"Mary can't have come down here, surely?" she asked a little shakily.

"Mebbe, mebbe not, but they know about 'er," Sutton replied. "She must 'ave asked a lot o' questions-the right ones, by the sound o' it."

"But they wouldn't tell her anything," she protested. "What harm could she have done that they killed her?"

"I dunno," he admitted unhappily. "But if anyone killed 'er, it must'a bin Toby Argyll. Thing is, 'oo told 'im ter?"

"I need to know!" she insisted. "Otherwise, how do we prove that she didn't kill herself?"

"I 'ave ter know, too," he agreed. "Or 'ow do we stop 'em from goin' on faster and faster till they bring the 'ole bleedin' roof in an' mebbe bury an 'undred men alive? Or worse 'n that, set the gas alight an' start 'nother Great Fire o' London?"

She said nothing. She did not know the answer, but it troubled her. If Mary had been right, could she possibly have been the only one to see the danger? Surely her questions alone would have been sufficient to alarm other people. Was that what Alan Argyll had been concerned about, not the actual situation but the fears and suspicion Mary was stirring up? Was there ever cause to think it could have started a panic?

"They don't seem afraid," she said aloud. "They don't really think it'll happen, do they?"

Sutton looked at her. "Afraid o' wot?" he said gently. "Think about it too 'ard, an' yer'll be afraid o' the 'ole o' life. Bein' 'urt, bein' ungry, bein' cold, bein' alone. Or yer mean bein' drownded or buried alive? Don't think too far ahead. Just do terday."

"Is that what Argyll counts on? Poor Mary."

"Dunno," he confessed. "But it don't make sense like it is."

She did not argue, and they walked in companionable silence to the bus stop.