Page 112 of When We Touch

“We rented it from a woman down the hall,” Fiona told her, pointing as Maggie lifted a brow.

Again, Maggie marched forward, and knocked on a door. It was answered by a portly woman with a heavy chin. She peered at them in the dim light that filtered out from her own quarters. “What ye want?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’m looking for the young woman who had taken the room down the hall,” Maggie said.

“Ah, she moved out! Barely moved in, and she moved out! The room’s vacant—there! You were with the girl!” she declared, pointing at Fiona. “I’m owed on that room. In fact, if ye’re kin to the girl, ye can give me wot’s due!”

“How amazing. Most people ask for their rents in advance!” Mireau said.

“She did ask for her rent in advance,” Fiona said, staring back at the woman.

“Where did she go?” Maggie demanded impatiently.

“Am I goin’ ta git me money?”

“Give her some money, Mireau,” Maggie said. “And missus, you tell me where the girl went.”

“The usual,” she said, taking the coin from Mireau, and studying it. Apparently, she decided that she had received a satisfactory bribe. “With a group of men.”

“A group of men!” Fiona said.

“Aye, a group of young cutthroats, I daresay. Where they went, I don’t know.”

“All right, then,” Maggie said. “Perhaps you can help us in another way. Have you heard about any mesmerists or spiritualists working in the area?”

“Ah . . . I’ve heard about a new fellow. Called Jeremiah. But if you want to know more about the bloke . . .”

“Mireau, give her more money,” Maggie said.

The woman grinned, pleased, and was happy to accept another coin.

“Sorry,” she said. “Seems the bloke don’t work out of one place, though he is gaining something of a reputation! Goes to diff’rent places, he does.”

“We should take the money back!” Mireau muttered.

Maybe the woman thought it was a real threat. She stepped back. “I can tell ye this—head for a pub just around the corner, called the Blarney Stone. His fellows are known to occupy the place. The gin is very cheap.”

She slammed the door in their faces then.

“The Blarney Stone, I take it?” Mireau said, rolling his eyes.

“The Blarney Stone,” Maggie agreed.

* * *

Midnight.

Now having moved on to a second pub, Jamie leaned against a wall, watching as the evening’s customers came and went. There was a killer loose on the streets, and it seemed that men and women alike were quick to whisper in hushed words about the goings on, but it didn’t appear to stop them from frequenting their favorite gin houses—and the streets.

The police were out and about, making their presence known. But that night, more than ever, Jamie became aware that they could not protect every woman on the street—many hundreds of thousands of people were crowded into London’s East End.

As he watched the doorway of the pub, he was startled to see a fine carriage drive by. For a moment, his blood quickened, as he feared that Maggie had ignored his threat, and had come to Whitechapel on another of her missions. But thus far, he’d never seen her in the foggy, misty, gas-lit streets at night.

He kept to the shadows, watching the carriage, and noted that there was no coat-of-arms upon the door. A block past the pub, in a field of haze, the carriage came to a halt. Someone in a black cape and tall hat stepped from the carriage. As a woman walked by, the fellow stopped her.

Frowning, Jamie walked along the row of cottages, remaining in the shadows, until he reached the carriage. He strode out, then, but paused at the rear of the carriage, surprised to see that the man was Baron Justin Graham.

Jamie couldn’t hear the words being exchanged, and he started to come around, and identify himself. But apparently, he had a made a noise, and Justin jerked his head around, then stepped back into the carriage. The woman stepped away, staring after the carriage, her eyes aglow.