"Very," Monk answered between his teeth. He had the perfect excuse. He knew all the details. He had helped pull the body out of the river before he had quarreled with his superior and left the police force. "Do you remember Big Jake Hillyard?"

The man stiffened. He swallowed with a jerk of his throat.

Monk smiled, showing his teeth. "Do you remember what happened to him?"

"Anybody could say they done that!" the man protested. "They never got the bloke who done it."

"I know they didn't," Monk agreed. "But would anybody else be able to tell you exactly what they did to him? I can. Would you like to learn? Would you like to hear about his eyes?"

" 'E 'ad no eyes . . . w'en they found Mm!" the man squeaked.

"I know that!" Monk snapped. "I know precisely what he had ... and what he hadn't! Where in St. Giles did you send those two little girls? I am asking you very nicely, because I should like to know. Do you understand me... clearly understand me?"

The man's face was white, sweating a little across the lips.

"Yeah! Yeah, I do. It were ter Jimmy Struther, in Coots Alley, be'ind the brickyard."

Monk grinned at him. "Thank you. For the sake of your eyesight, that had better be the truth."

"It is! It is!"

Monk had no doubt from the man's expression that indeed it was. He let the man go, then turned on his heel and left.

St. Giles turned out to be only another stop along the way. According to the woman he questioned there, the girls had remained for several years. She was not certain how many, seven or eight at least. Many of the patrons were too drunk or too desperate to care what a serving girl looked like, and the work was simple and repetitive. Little was asked of them, but then little indeed was given. Such affection or companionship as they ever received was from each other. And apparently each was quick to defend the other, even at the cost of a beating. The elder had once had her nose and two ribs broken in a brawl to protect her younger sister from the temper of one of the yard men.

Monk listened to the stories, and a picture emerged of two girls growing up totally untutored and unhelped, learning what little they did by trial and error—sometimes acutely painful error—able to speak only poorly, words muffled by crooked lips, heard by partially deaf ears. They were sometimes mocked for their afflictions, feared for their appearance, as if the disfigurement might be contagious, like a pox.

One woman said that she had heard them laugh, and on two or three occasions seen them play games with one another. They had a pet dog for a while. She had no idea what had become of it.