“I can ask,” Hester promised, overwhelmed with pity again. “But please, don’t hope for much. I don’t think anyone knows. And of course, if it was business of some sort, it would be well away from any of these women. The police say he was found in Abel Smith’s . . . house . . . in Leather Lane, but Abel swears it wasn’t any of his women who killed him. Perhaps they are telling the truth, and he was killed by whoever he went to see?” She hated telling what she thought was almost certainly a lie. But very possibly no one would ever know who had killed Baltimore, let alone why, so perhaps his daughter would be able to cling to her illusions.

“That would be it,” Livia said, grasping hope as if it were a lifeline. “Thank you for your logic, your good sense, Mrs. Monk.”

Hester pressed her advantage, and it was at least in part for Livia as well. “Perhaps your brother would stop asking the police so hard to drive the women off the streets?” she suggested. “It may have nothing to do with any of them, and harrying them will make them even less likely to tell you anything.”

“But if they don’t know anything . . .” Livia started.

“They may have seen nothing,” Hester conceded. “But they will get to hear. Word passes quickly in places like this.”

“I don’t know. Jarvis doesn’t listen to—”

Before she could finish the train of her thought the street door swung open wide and a young man shouted for help, panic harsh in his voice. His face was white, his hair streaked across his brow in the rain, and his thin clothes were sodden and sticking to his narrow chest.

Livia swung around, and Hester rose to her feet just as a far larger man came staggering in holding a woman in his arms. She was so pale her skin looked waxy in the gaslight, and her eyes were closed, her head lolling as if she were completely insensible.

“Put her there.” Hester pointed to the larger, empty table.

“ ’Aven’t yer got a bed?” The large man stifled a sob. His face was twisted with emotion; anger was so much less painful than the terror which obviously engulfed him.

Hester was accustomed to all kinds of feelings pouring out beyond control, and she made no judgment of them, no response to those that were unfair.

“I need to see what is wrong,” she explained. “I have to have a firm surface, and the light. Put her there.”

He obeyed, his eyes imploring her to help, to find some answer beyond his imagining.