“I thought she were a nun. Their lot is always going into slums, trying to save bloody sinners. Ain’t ya?” He switched his glare to Mr. Fielding.

Then he faltered. I could not see Mr. Fielding’s eyes from where I stood, but whatever was in them made Luke shrink back.

“And this is why you claim you did not assault Nurse Betts?” McGregor went on remorselessly. “Leaving her with wounds that proved to be mortal?”

Luke’s face lost color. “I tell ya, I never touched ’er. Ya can’t pin this on me.”

“Possibly not. Not if you have witnesses.”

His eyes widened. “What witness is going to be running about Naismith’s lands? If she went there, looking to bleat about bawdy houses, she probably met his bullies. I didn’t want to meet them, not by meself. So I went.”

“Very well.” Inspector McGregor made a note on the papers before him. “If that is your statement regarding Nurse Betts, I will have it written up, and you will sign it.”

Luke slumped in relief, but the inspector straightened his sheets and cleared his throat.

“That leaves the charges of assault, one on Mrs. Holloway, if she wishes to prosecute, and the others on . . .” Inspector McGregor consulted his papers. “Oh, numerous men and women. And the procuring of children for prostitution purposes.”

“Only doing what I were told,” Luke protested. “’Sides, the lads and lasses weren’t doing nothing in Ma Aster’s house they weren’t doing on the streets already. She likes ’em with experience. She gives ’em a bed and meals. Damned sight better than they’d have in the back lanes.”

I expected Mr. Fielding to launch himself at Luke, but he remained still. Daniel too was deathly silent.

“That leaves the question of the children from the Foundling Hospital,” McGregor continued. “Where are they, Mahoney?”

Luke again looked bewildered. “I don’t know, do I? Never seen any foundlings. I told ya, I only took kiddies from the street what were already on the game. No stealing from foundling homes. What do you take me for?”

A strange world, I thought, when a procurer and a ruffian for hire could hold himself lofty because he only kidnapped children who were already ruined.

Inspector McGregor tapped his papers to the table to straighten them and rose.

“Luke Mahoney, I am charging you with assault, procuring, and helping run a bawdy house. Constables will be along to escort you to your new accommodations. Ma Aster is already enjoying hers. I imagine a few weeks on the treadmill at Coldbath Fields will take a bit of the pride out of you.”

Luke’s defiance was gone. The man who’d terrified me on the street slumped in his chair, resigned.

I still expected Mr. Fielding to attack Luke now that the interrogation was over, but he rose without doing anything rash and followed Inspector McGregor and Daniel out.