"Mrs. Monk," she supplied. "Because from the description, the load have torn the femoral artery, which would have meant he bled to death in a matter of minutes. If there had been anyone there on the scene to amputate the limb and rescue him, surely it would have been mentioned?"

He was clearly flustered. "The details are not there, young lady, and I hardly think it is something about which you would have any knowledge, even if you can read a little and bandy words around as if you understood them."

"Oh, she does!" Rose said with a sweet smile. "Mrs. Monk was in the Crimea with Miss Nightingale. She is acquainted with battlefield surgery, in the most distressing circumstances."

"You didn't say so!" he accused, the color now hot in his face. "That is, if I may be candid, most deceiving of you!"

"Is it?" Rose said ingenuously. "I'm so sorry. I had imagined you would say exactly the same to whomever you spoke to. Had she been of a delicate disposition and likely to faint, I would not have brought her, of course. But that is quite different. I cannot imagine what you would have said differently had you known Mrs. Monk is very practiced in such tragic and terrible things."

He glared at her but apparently could think of nothing to escape from the pit he had unwittingly dug for himself.

"I shall just make a few notes so that we cannot find ourselves mistaken. It would be dreadful to quote figures that are not true. And embarrassing," Rose continued, keeping her smile fixed. She looked straight at him; his face was tight-lipped, but he did not argue.

Outside on the steps, with the wind tugging at their skirts, victory seemed already fading. Rose turned to Hester. "Now what do we do?"

"We have addresses," Hester replied. "We find a cup of tea, or better, chocolate, if we can. Then we go and see some of these people and find out which of them, if any, Mary Havilland asked also."

Fortified by a cup each of thick, rich cocoa and a ham sandwich bought from a peddler, then hot chestnuts a hundred yards farther on, they set out to the nearest of the addresses. The early afternoon turned colder. The sleet changed into intermittent snow, but still the street was too wet for it to stick except on the windowsills and lower eaves. Of course the roofs were white except for around the chimneys, where the heat melted the snow and sent it in dribbles down the slates. Cab horses looked miserable. Peddlers shivered. The wind flurried, scattering newspapers, and gray smoke hung in the air like shadows of the night to come.

At the first house the woman refused to allow them in. At the second there was no answer. At the third, the woman was busy with three children, the oldest of whom looked barely five.