“Not her.” McGregor’s growl cut in. “A few weeks ago. She was a nurse from the Foundling Hospital.”

Luke’s brows furrowed then his expression cleared. “You mean the nun? I run her off too. She was knocking at the door, yelling at the ladies inside. It’s my job to run people off.”

“Where did she go?” Daniel asked. “Did you follow her?”

“You a copper?” Luke looked Daniel up and down. “Ain’t fair, is it, when you lot make coppers look like one of us.”

“I agree,” Daniel said, his voice steady. “Did you chase her?”

Luke reddened. “Had to. She weren’t going to leave off. Kept screeching she was going to the police. I had to get her out.”

“So you followed her to make sure she didn’t come back,” Daniel said. “Where did she go?”

“East End.”

“A large area,” Daniel persisted. “You followed her all the way there?”

“Yeah. She walked. Didn’t take no hansom or omnibus. She didn’t have no coin, I guess, being a nun.”

Mr. Fielding finally opened his mouth. “She was not a nun. A nurse.” His voice was hard. “At the Foundling Hospital.”

The repetition of who she was did not seem to shake Luke. “I thought she were a nun and would stir up trouble with the Peelers and the reformers. I followed her to Whitechapel. It’s a bad place, is Whitechapel. I didn’t like to be there.”

For a man from St. Giles to describe another part of London as a “bad place” was saying something.

“Where exactly did she go?” Daniel prompted.

Luke shuffled his feet under the table, his eyes taking on animallike fear. The odor emanating from him was not pleasant.

“As I say, it’s a bad place. Looked to me like she didn’t know it well. Started wandering, like she were searching for a turning. She ends up at a church, the one right in Whitechapel High Street, making like she’d go in. Then she changes her mind and marches toward the theatre some ways on. She turns behind that, but I didn’t follow. That took her into the territory of Naismith.”

I jumped at the name. Naismith was the man whom Daniel blamed for the death of Mr. Carter—he believed Naismith had ordered Mr. Carter and all his cohorts murdered.

Both Daniel and Mr. Fielding went very still, the air crackling with their silence.

Inspector McGregor, always efficient, carried on. “Why do you call it that?”

Luke stared at the inspector as though he were daft. “Everyone knows. Naismith is a hard, hard man, and no one goes to Bethnal Green if they ain’t one of his. I turned around and hightailed it home.”

“Leaving the young lady there,” Inspector McGregor said in a stern voice. “Though you knew it to be very dangerous for her.”