Mr Baranov adjusted the light while the nurse mixed some paste for the filling. He came close again.
'Nearly done. I expect you are wondering what Dr Crippen has to do with the dental profession. Well, before the murder, he was in partnership with a young fellow-American. They called themselves the Yale Tooth Specialists. Crippen was a medical man if he was anything at all, so he looked after the business side of things and helped occasionally, and Ethel was the nurse. Now this is the point of the story. Ethel suffered from headaches. Neuralgia. They decided the pain was caused by her teeth, so they extracted them. Twenty-one teeth at one sitting. The poor girl was no older than you are now. Criminal. I wish I could remember the girl's surname. It was something rather exotic'
Alma tried to say "Le Neve" without moving her mouth.
'Yes, Miss Webster. I know it's a little uncomfortable. Just bear with me a few minutes more.'
She remembered the Crippen case. The papers had been full of it for weeks. It was in 1910, when she was seventeen, and reading Ethel M. Dell. She had been deeply affected by it. She had felt nothing but pity for the two fugitives pacing the deck of that poky little steamer in their pathetic disguises for ten days, while thanks to a sharp-eyed ship's captain and the miracle of wireless every Tom, Dick and Harry who could read a newspaper knew that Inspector Dew would be waiting with the handcuffs in Toronto. She had wept for them when the news of the arrest came through. She had tried to decide whether she, too, could have faced that moment with dignity. Love, and love alone, must have fortified them.
'There.' Mr Baranov removed the instruments from her mouth. 'Try not to use that side of your mouth this evening. Nurse will arrange the next appointment. Is there anything the matter?'
'I was going to say that the name of the woman was Le Neve, Ethel Le Neve.'
'So it was. You do have an excellent memory.'
'Here in England, it was in all the newspapers.'
'Oh, I remember that.'
'You were in England in 1910?'
'And all my life,' said Mr Baranov with a smile.
'But
'You thought I was Russian, did you? It's a reasonable assumption, and you aren't the first to make it. My father's name was Henry Brown. He worked the halls as a tight-rope walker.' He gave a rapid mime, with arms outstretched. 'The Great Baranov.'
Alma was stunned. 'So you are English?'
'I was christened Walter Brown. I say, you do look pale.'
'Your father called himself Baranov for the music halls?'
'And 1 adopted it for my signboard. In this work, it's no handicap to have a foreign-sounding name. The English don't believe they're getting a decent dentist if he has a name like Walter Brown.'
She was speechless.
'You're frowning,' he said. 'It's quite legal, you know. For my father it was simply a stage-name, but I decided to get it done by deed poll. I was about to get married, and my wife-to-be was strongly in favour, being on the stage herself. Lydia Baranov — not a bad name for an actress, is it? Perhaps you've heard of her. She's quite well known in the theatre.'
His wife was alive.
Alma swayed slightly. She had to get out of this place. She turned away from him and crossed the room. Tears were blurring her vision. The nurse held the door open and put an appointment card into Alma's hand.
Out in the street she tore it in half and dropped the pieces down the nearest drain.
2
Another young woman featured in the case. Her name was Poppy Duke.
Lord's Day Observance operated in reverse for Poppy. She rested for six days and worked on the Sabbath. Her place of work was the Petticoat Lane market. She was eighteen, bright-eyed, with a smile that teased and natural golden hair in tight, fine curls. She was a brilliant thief. She had slim hands with long fingers that could slip a wallet from its owner's pocket as she bumped against him and said, 'Do you mind?' She could unfasten a handbag and the purse inside and remove the paper money in one continuous movement imperceptible to the owner or the stallholder trying to extract it more legitimately. She was tolerated in the market because it was said that she was a sort of modern Robin Hood. She robbed only the visitors who came to look rather than to buy. And she employed up to half a dozen children as stalls and stickmen, and paid them generously.
This morning she had hardly started when she spotted a perfect quarry, a youngish man in a smart suit and a trilby, with an officer's trenchcoat draped round his shoulders like a cape. He had stopped at a stall selling tea and caused some annoyance by producing a pound note. He claimed he had no change.
'Well, you have now, duck,' said the woman on the stall as she dropped a quantity of small coins into his hand. 'Are you going to count them?' She handed him the mug of tea.
He was still holding his wallet. He stuffed it into the outer pocket of his trenchcoat and took the tea.
Poppy moved in. She wasn't leaving this to some beginner in the trade. She stood as if waiting in the queue. With her left hand she flicked up the pocket-flap and felt for the wallet.
To her horror, a hand gripped hers inside the pocket. She could not remove it. The man turned and grinned. He still held the tea in his right hand. It was his left, drawn across his front and through the division in the coat lining, that was holding hers.
He said, 'Well, Poppy, I'd say that was like taking sweets from a baby.'
She said, 'I got me hand caught.'
'You certainly did, and I don't intend to let it go. If you don't want trouble keep it there and hold yourself against me. I've got a taxi waiting up the street.'
'Are you taking me in? Give us a chance, mate.'
'Just walk, Poppy.'
She obeyed. She was afraid that her small boy accomplices might try to stall them and get caught as well. Alone, she couldn't get done for much.
When they reached the taxi in Whitechapel High Street, he released her hand. She was expecting him to handcuff her, but he didn't. She said, 'Here, are you the law, or what?'
He pushed her firmly into the cab and sat beside her.
'Poppy darling,' he said with another grin, 'it's your birthday.'
'What the hell do you mean? Where are you taking me?'
'To choose a present, sweetheart.'
'I don't know what sort of girl you take me for, mister.'
'Calm down. I'm just taking you for a ride, aren't I?'
They drove through the City and Holborn to Oxford Street. Poppy glared at her companion, trying to fathom who he was. She hadn't seen him in the Lane before this morning. He was dressed like a gent, which he obviously was not.
The taxi turned left into Bond Street and stopped.
'What are we doing here?' demanded Poppy.
'Get out, and I'll show you. But don't embarrass me, will you? It's a very nobby area.'
He steered Poppy, wide-eyed, towards a dress-shop she had only ever read about in magazines. 'Choose one,' he told her, 'for a party.'
'Hold on a mo — what do you really want?'
'I'll tell you, Poppy,' he said, as they both stared into the window. 'I was told that you're the smartest dip in London and I want to hire your services for an evening. It's a party, so you need to have a dress. What do you think of the black number over there with silver sequins? If you enlist with me, you get a decent uniform. And you keep it. Right?'