A curious expression flickered over his face, a kind of suppressed fury. Why? If he knew who it was, why did he not inform, secretly of course, and get the whole thing over with? Then he and everyone else could get back to normality.

There was only one possible answer to that—because it implicated him in some way, or at least his house. Did he protect his women, even at the cost of business? She found that very hard to believe. He used women until they were of no value anymore, then discarded them, as all pimps did. They were property.

But his were particularly valuable property, not easily replaced. He could not go out and get them; they had to walk into this trap.

“They won’t find out,” he sneered, but there was rising tension underneath it, and he watched her every bit as closely as she did him. “If they’d had any idea at all they’d have sewn it up by now,” he went on. “They’re here to please some bleedin’ toff’s feelings of outrage ’cos a tart dared to hit back.” There was hatred in his eyes, but for whom she could not tell.

What had happened to the woman who had killed Baltimore, if it was a woman? Or had she simply struck him, and perhaps screamed, and someone like the would-be butler at the door had actually killed him? Perhaps even unintentionally, in a fight at the top of the stairs, Baltimore had lost his balance and fallen.

“Somebody must be sheltering her,” she said aloud, then stopped, seeing the instant denial in his face. “You think not?”

He wiped his expression blank. “How’d I know? Mebbe.”

“You’d make it your business to know,” she replied, her eyes never leaving his. “Do you wish to be thought incompetent—stupid?” she added for clarity in case he misunderstood.

He flushed with anger—or possibly a kind of embarrassment?

“You’ve a reputation to keep up,” she continued.

“What do you want?” he snapped, his voice high with barely controlled tension. “I can’t stop Jessop, I told you that. If you want someone to go an’ beat a little consideration into’im, it’ll cost you. I don’t care whether you’ve got money or not, you’ll get nothin’ for nothin’.”

It was not just greed driving him, it was fear as well; she could see it and hear it, almost feel it in the room. Fear of what? Not the police; they were nowhere near any kind of solution. She knew that from Constable Hart. Fear of the silent man who loaned money to young women and then blackmailed them into prostitution? A man who would do that must be a cruel and possibly dangerous partner. Was he threatening Squeaky if he did not produce the usual income in spite of the circumstances?