‘The girl must have it,’ the watcher said. ‘She is hiding somewhere.’
‘Not in here,’ Dickens murmured.
Beyond argument, he was right. Dickens pointed to the corpse. ‘This man came here alone, I take it?’
‘Oh, yes. He was one of her regulars. Always paid handsomely for her time.’
‘When he arrived, you handed him the key and asked Nellie to escort him up to this room?’
Mrs Jugg nodded. Ain’t that right, Nell?’
The maid, still snivelling out on the landing, managed a grunt.
Dickens said, ‘You saw him enter the room?’
‘As he put the key in the lock,’ the maid croaked, ‘he told me I could go.’
‘So you did not see Bella herself?’ Collins asked.
The maid shook her head, but the fat woman said impatiently, ‘Of course, Bella was in the room, waiting for him. She was here all evening, same as usual. Nellie brought her up and locked her in, same as always. The gentleman had an appointment. He called upon her every Thursday at nine, regular as clockwork.’
‘She must have done him in and then locked the door on him,’ the bald man said. ‘It’s the only way.’
‘If she’d come down to the ground, you’d have stopped her, wouldn’t you, Jack, my lad?’
‘She could never get past me,’ he boasted. ‘She’s tried it once or twice and I made her pay for it, so help me.’
‘Then,’ Dickens suggested, ‘if she is flesh and blood and not a poltergeist, she must be concealed in one of the other rooms on this floor.’
‘He’s right,’ the watcher said.
‘What are you waiting for, then?’ the fat woman demanded. ‘Let’s find her, quick!’
They hurried out and into the adjoining bedroom. Dickens moved swiftly to Nellie’s side and whispered something to her before returning and pulling the door shut behind him.
‘What did you say to her?’ Collins asked.
Dickens was staring at the pale flesh of the dead man.
‘Do you recognise him, Wilkie?’
‘The face seems familiar, but -’
‘This is the Honourable Thaddeus Whiteacre. You heard the woman refer to him as “His Lordship”? He liked to play up his noble origins. Besides that, he fancied himself as something of an artist, although to my mind his daubs were infantile. John Forster introduced me to him a year ago at a meeting of the Guild for Literature and Art.’
‘You are acquainted?’
‘Regrettably. De mortuis, Wilkie, but he struck me as one of the least agreeable men I have ever met. I recall a conversation in which he sought to convince me of the pleasure that could be gained from inflicting pain – and having pain inflicted upon oneself.’
Collins shivered as he considered the corpse’s face. Even in death, the saturnine features seemed menacing. He found it easy to imagine that they belonged to a man with vile and sinister tastes.
‘Do you believe that Bella killed him?’
Dickens put a finger to his lips. ‘Come, let us join the search.’
The watcher and his mistress were opening and slamming shut cupboard doors and drawers scarcely large enough to accommodate a box of clothes, let alone a full-grown woman. It was absurd, Collins thought, to imagine that the missing girl could have taken refuge in a room where a colleague was entertaining a client – but where might she have concealed herself? The brothel-keeper was cursing and describing in savage terms what she would do to Bella once she was found. Nellie had scuttled off downstairs, while the shivering prostitutes hugged each other in a corner and tried not to attract the fat woman’s attention.
‘She’s been spirited away!’ one of the girls said. Her face was blotchy and tear-stained, her body covered in yellowing bruises. Collins doubted if she was yet sixteen years of age. ‘It’s the Devil’s work!’
‘Bella would never hurt a fly!’ the other girl cried. ‘Someone else has done this! Or something. Killed His Lordship and then kidnapped Bella!’
‘Shut your mouths!’ the brothel-keeper shouted. ‘Bogeymen don’t stab strong fellows to death with scissors. And as for you, Jack Wells, don’t think I’ve finished with you – not by a long chalk!’
‘I told you, she couldn’t have passed me,’ the bald man said mutinously. ‘I never take my eye off the stairs when there are visitors in the house.’
‘Then where did she go? I’ve been by the front door ever since Nellie roused me at five.’
‘You reside on the premises, I suppose?’ Dickens said.
‘In the basement, that’s right. But it would have been impossible for her to get down there. Jack or I would have seen her. And there aren’t any windows she could have climbed through to get out of the building. Besides, her boots were in the cupboard. That’s her only pair. She can’t have got far without her boots!’
‘The fact remains,’ Dickens said, ‘that Bella has vanished. It is as if she never existed. Yet my friend and I have not enjoyed the privileges for which we paid handsomely. May 1 ask for reimbursement of -’
The bald man took a couple of paces toward them and seized Dickens’s collar. ‘So you want your money back, do you? Well, you’ll have to whistle for it!’
‘That’s right!’ the fat woman shouted, as if glad to find a target for her fury that was made of flesh and blood. ‘If you two know what’s good for you, you’ll clear off now like these other lily-livered bastards!’
‘Please assure me,’ Dickens said, rubbing his neck as the bald man released his grip, ‘that there is no question of your summoning the police.’
The fat woman stared at him. ‘Think I was born yesterday? No fear of that, mister. Them peelers would like nothing better than to pin something on me.’
‘But the body -’ Collins began.
‘Jack will find a graveyard for it,’ she interrupted. ‘Don’t you fear.’
‘At the bottom of the Thames, I suppose?’ Dickens said.
The bald watcher scowled at him. ‘You heard what she said. It’s as easy for me to chuck three bodies in the river as one.’
Dickens caught his friend’s eye and nodded toward the stairs. ‘Very well. We will go.’
‘And don’t come back,’ the fat woman said. ‘You’ve brought trouble to this house, you two. Theft and murder. Now, Jack, you see to the body while I get Nellie to help me look for that murderous little bitch.’
Dickens hurried down the stairs, with Collins close behind. As they reached the ground, they heard the brothel-keeper calling Nellie’s name, but Collins could not see the maid in the parlour. He presumed that she was in the front room, where the red candle burned. Dickens caught hold of his wrist and manhandled him down the passageway and out into the fog.
An hour later the two friends were ensconced in the more congenial and familiar surroundings of the Ship and Turtle in the heart of the City. Exhausted on their arrival after racing from Greenwich, they had quaffed a couple of glasses of ale to calm their nerves with scarcely a word of conversation.
An extraordinary evening,’ Collins said at length. ‘Expensive, too.’
Dickens shrugged, his expression shorn of emotion. So energetic by nature, he seemed in an uncharacteristically reflective mood. ‘For the Honourable Thaddeus Whiteacre, undoubtedly.’
‘Well, I realise you are a man of means, old fellow, but you must be bitter at having spent so much for so little reward.’
‘Oh, I’m not so sure about that, Wilkie.’
Collins stared at his friend. ‘I really think that it is time that you were frank with me. Your behaviour tonight has been most extraordinary. I thought that we were out for a little innocent amusement…’
‘I agree that what happened was neither innocent nor amusing.’
‘…and instead we ended up running through a peasouper, fleeing from a madam’s hired ruffian. Even since we’ve arrived here, you’ve spent most of the time staring into space, as if trying to unravel the most ticklish conundrum.’