Reluctantly, he moved back and swung the door open for her to follow. She went in after him and found herself on a narrow landing with half a dozen doors leading off it. He walked ahead of her with a curious, rolling gait, as if he had been long at sea. He stopped at the fourth door along, opened it and led the way in. She went after him and found herself in a sitting room whose furnishings had once been green and red but were now faded and soiled to shades of brown, like old leaves. A desk against the back wall was covered with papers. There was a soft chair ahead of her, and a very small fireplace, presently filled with dead ash. The odor of stale air was oppressive. Warmth would only have made it worse.

“I would like to speak to some of your girls,” she asked.

“They don’t know nothin’,” he said flatly.

“I don’t care about your miserable trade!” She knew her voice was rising but she could not help it. “They may have seen this man in the street. Somebody brought him here. You say he didn’t walk in . . . then who brought him? Haven’t you even wondered who did this to you?”

“Yer bleedin’ right I ’ave!” he spat, his face suddenly losing its pink, innocent look and burning instead like that of a malevolent baby, curiously evil because it was so ludicrous. He suddenly raised his voice. “Ada!” he yelled with startling volume.

There was a slight sound downstairs, but no one appeared.

“Ada!” he screamed.

The door flew open and a fat woman almost his own height burst into the room, her black ringlets clustered around her red face, her eyes blazing with indignation. She looked at him, then at Hester.

“No good,” she said without being asked. “Too thin. Wot yer call me fer, yer daft a’porth? Don’t yer know nothin’? Sorry for ’er, are yer?” She jabbed a short, fat finger toward Hester. “Well, not in this ’ouse, yer great soft ’eap o’ . . .” She stopped, sensing his lack of self-justification. She realized her error and swung around to face Hester. “Well, wot are yer ’ere fer then? Cat got yer tongue?”

Hester pulled out the drawing of Nolan Baltimore and showed it to her.

Ada barely glanced at it. “ ’E’s dead,” she said flatly. “Some ’eap o’ dung left ’ere on our floor, but ’e in’t nuffin’ ter do wi’ us. Never see’d’im afore, an’ no one can prove we ’ave!”

“It’s your word against theirs,” Hester said reasonably.

Ada was hugely practical. She was too much of a survivor to quarrel for the sake of it. “So wot der yer want, then? W’y’d yer care ’oo put’im ’ere?”