“Well, there must have been lots of people who would like to see Parfitt dead,” Hester began. “It is just possible it wasn’t Rupert who actually killed him. But even if he did do it, there might have been something that made it not as bad as straight murder.”

“Like wot?” Scuff was balancing the bread in his hands, ready to cut more when he was free to concentrate on it.

“I’m not quite sure,” she admitted. “Self-defense is one. And sometimes it’s an accident, maybe a real accident, or maybe you’re partly to blame because you were being very careless, not so much that you didn’t mean to kill anyone so much as you just didn’t care.”

He looked at her, biting his lips anxiously. “ ’E could a done that? I mean, killed ’im by accident, like?”

“No,” she said honestly. “I don’t think so. Actually, his father said that he claimed he didn’t do it at all. And lots of people must have hated Parfitt.”

“D’yer believe ’im, then?”

“I don’t know. His father said he has behaved pretty badly in the past, but not as badly as that. I need to know more about him, perhaps things his father doesn’t know about because Rupert was too ashamed to say. I’ll be out for quite a while, I think.”

“ ’Oo are ye gonna ask, then? Other toffs, an’ the like? Will ’is friends tell yer? I wouldn’t tell on a friend, specially not to a copper’s wife.” Then he realized that was silly. “ ’Ceptin’ I don’t s’pose you’ll tell ’em ’oo yer are.”

She smiled, taking the now steaming kettle off the stove and warming the teapot before putting the leaves in. “Of course not. I’m going to the clinic first to ask a few questions of the women we’ve got in at the moment. There, at least, I have something of an advantage. Then tomorrow I’ll move a little farther afield.”

He nodded. “Yer think as mebbe ’e done a good thing, killin’ Mickey Parfitt, an’ all?”

“I wouldn’t push it quite that far,” she said cautiously. “But not totally bad.”

“Ye’re right.” Scuff nodded again, more vehemently. “We gotter chip in. Yer gonna make that tea? It’s steamin’ its ’ead off. An’ there’s more jam.”

WHEN HESTER ARRIVED AT the clinic, she began by going over the books with Squeaky Robinson.

“We’re doing well,” he said with considerable satisfaction. He pointed to the place on the page where the final tally was. Even his lugubrious nature could not but be pleased by it. “And we don’t need much,” he added. “Just new plates as they got broke. We’ve got sheets, even spare nightshirts, towels. Got medicines—laudanum, quinine, brandy, all sorts.”

Hester avoided his eyes. “I know. It’s excellent.”

“What are you going to do, then?” he asked.