The girl glared at her, the warning back in her eyes.

“Thank you,” Hester repeated, and put the picture back into her pocket and walked on, almost as far as High Holborn, asking people, showing them the drawing, then back up the Farringdon Road and across Hatton Wall back to Leather Lane again. She found no one who would admit to having seen Nolan Baltimore.

It was fully dark now, and definitely colder. There were very few people around. A man in a coat too big for him hurried along the footpath, dragging one foot a little, his shadow crooked on the stones as he passed under the street lamp.

A woman paraded along the opposite side casually, keeping her head high as if she were full of confidence. As she rounded the corner into Hatton Wall a hansom slowed. Hester did not see whether she was picked up or not.

A beggar reached an arched doorway and subsided into the brief shelter of it, as if for the night.

Hester had accomplished nothing. She was not even sure if people were lying out of fear or perversity, or if indeed no one had seen Baltimore.

If the latter, did that mean he had not been here? Or simply that he had been extremely careful? Would a man like Nolan Baltimore not automatically be careful not to be recognized? What had he come here for? A secret business meeting to do with land fraud? Or, far more likely, to indulge a taste for a bit of rough pleasure, and practices he could not indulge in at home.

At least she knew where Abel Smith’s establishment was, and she decided as a last resort to go there and confront him. She retraced her steps along Leather Lane and finally went into a short alley off the street and up a rickety stair. All around her she could hear the faint drip of moisture, the creak of wood, and now and then the scurry of clawed feet. That last noise reminded her of the rats in the hospital at Scutari, and she clenched her teeth and moved a little faster.

The door opened as she reached it, startling her, and a bald man with a smiling face stood looking at her. The light behind him made a halo out of the few white hairs on his scalp.

“Are yer lost, then?” he asked, his voice sibilant as if he had a broken tooth. It was only when she reached the top step that she realized he was several inches shorter than she was.

“That depends on whether this is Abel Smith’s house or not,” she replied, glad she was not out of breath as well as reasons. “If it is, then I am where I mean to be.”