Mrs. Compton snapped her head around and stared at me as though I’d gone mad. “What do you mean? What children?”

“Sam Howes, Joshua Tarr, Margaret Penny.”

Her brows went up. “Someone’s been telling you tales, Mrs. Holloway. They ain’t missing. Adopted, weren’t they?”

“Adopted?” I asked in surprise.

“Put into good homes, in any case. Not missing at all.”

“Oh.” Mr. Fielding had said the director claimed the children had been fostered. Now Mrs. Compton was telling a similar tale. “Never mind then,” I said, reserving judgment. “I must have heard wrong.”

“You certainly did. Children don’t go missing from our Hospital, Mrs. Holloway,” Mrs. Compton said sternly. “They are well looked after . . . if a little harshly, in my opinion. Not allowed out of the matrons’ or nurses’ sights. They’re trained up and either taken in by a family or are hired out in service. Or they remain and work at the Hospital. Like Bessie.”

I started. “Bessie? The one who shouted at me several times?”

“Mustn’t mind her.” Mrs. Compton almost smiled. “Her young man was arrested for theft and is currently banged up in Coldbath Fields. Makes her angry, but it’s what happens when a young woman takes up with a bad man.” Mrs. Compton spoke as though she would never make such a disastrous choice.

“Not the case with Nurse Betts?” I asked.

“Gracious, no.” Mrs. Compton looked amazed I’d ever think so. “Nurse Betts warned Bessie—we all did. No, the only young man to catch Nurse Betts’s interest, and that’s been recently, is a highly respectable gent. I’ve never met him, but I’ve seen him walking the grounds with her, and I know he’s taken her for tea. He’s one of the governors—they visit us sometimes. Mrs. Shaw, in fact, is sweet on a governor herself, the daft woman. As though such a highborn fellow will have anything to do with a housekeeper.”

“Is he the same governor who took Nurse Betts to tea?” I asked.

“No, no. The fellow Nurse Betts fancies hasn’t been on the board long, a year perhaps. Wears a dog collar—you know what I mean. A parson of some sort.”

“A parson.” I repeated the word slowly, and the van gave a particularly hard jolt.

“A clergyman anyway. As I said, I’ve not met him, but I asked her about him. She says he’s at a parish in the East End. Probably a curate too poor to marry the girl, I’m thinking, but a fine-looking bloke. Dark-haired, with a nice beard, lovely smile. If he knew where she was, I have no doubt he’d say.”

*   *   *

Daniel made a delivery to a restaurant in King’s Cross Road, then obligingly drove Mrs. Compton back to the Foundling Hospital.