I laid down the fork and began to crimp the crusts. “She is quite efficient, isn’t she? Always turning up at the strategic moment, with the right thing to say to make people like her. Sending me the herbs was a master stroke. I’ll forgive her anything for that.”

Cynthia toyed with the handle of the fork I’d set on the table. “She is what Auntie wishes me to be, a beautiful and accomplished woman with a natural generosity. If Miss Townsend were the marrying sort, she’d be perfect in Auntie’s eyes.”

“But even she is dependent on her family’s goodwill,” I said.

“More or less. She has a wise head on her shoulders, does Judith. I have no doubt she’s put money by so she’ll have her own income if her family gave her the elbow.”

“How long have you known her?” My curiosity about this woman had stirred the moment I met her, and I could not seem to satisfy it.

“I haven’t— She and Bobby grew up together. Or at least near each other. Judith is a little older than me and ran in slightly different circles.” She flicked her finger over the end of the fork’s handle, making the fork jump. “Lucky her.”

“Perhaps you could be an artist,” I suggested, wanting to soothe her. “Then you could run in her circles and find a patron.”

Cynthia wrinkled her forehead, then she began to laugh. “One has to actually be able to draw or paint to make a living at it. Or sculpt, or write, or compose music, or anything of that nature. I’m rather washed-up, myself.”

Any other day, she might say this gloomily, but she continued to be in fine spirits. Spending the evening with Mr. Thanos had agreed with her.

Cynthia sprang up, finished with the conversation. “If I encounter Miss Townsend, I’ll tell her you’re worried about her. But I suspect she’s going at it with brush and oils. I’m meeting Thanos in Bedford Square today. We’re going to visit the museum and talk about what to do next to find the kiddies. They can’t have vanished into smoke.”

But they could have, I knew, my heart heavy. Children of the streets so easily sickened and died. If they survived it was by becoming harder than the men and women around them, which was exactly what Daniel and Mr. Fielding had done.

Bessie’s assertion that the children’s things had been packed and vanished with them both confused and worried me. This spoke not of an opportunistic snatching of children as they strayed, but of something cold-bloodedly planned.

I did not like it at all.