I put a comforting hand on the woman’s arm. “I know. I am so sorry.”

“I can’t tell you, Mrs. Holloway, that it’s a fine thing to have someone believe me that something is going wrong in this place. If you have any powerful friends, make them find those poor tykes, and bring down the villains what did for Nurse Betts.”

“I will do my best,” I promised her.

The killer might have been any ruffian in the East End who objected to Nurse Betts walking past him or not answering him, or whatever reason he’d decided to be angry with her. London had too many of those toughs, as I’d discovered myself. Then again, I knew that her disappearing and turning up dead could not be a coincidence.

A door banged. Mrs. Compton and I jumped then flattened ourselves against the wall as Bessie herself charged past us, wrapped tightly in a woolen shawl.

“Bessie?” Mrs. Compton called after her. “Where are you off to?”

Bessie threw an angry glance over her shoulder. “It’s me day out, innit?” She swung away and kept marching.

“She’s got a foul temper, does that one,” Mrs. Compton muttered. “In any case, Mrs. Holloway, if you can help, I’d be so grateful.”

“I’ll do my best, Mrs. Compton.” I bid her a hasty good afternoon and started down the passageway after Bessie. I decided to be very curious as to where Bessie was going and didn’t want to lose sight of her.

I heard Mrs. Compton retreat, the door thudding as she returned to the warmth of the kitchen. I quickened my pace, listening for Bessie’s footfalls, but they’d already faded into the distance.

The passage ended at a gate that led to the burial ground, a peaceful stretch of green in the middle of the noisy metropolis. A gate rested in the wall on the other side, the only exit Bessie could have taken.

I hastened down the path across the green and out through the gate. A church sat opposite, but I saw a flash of Bessie’s faded brown shawl to my right.

I followed her to the main thoroughfare, Gray’s Inn Road. She turned south here, moving quickly through the carts and people, past the great edifice of the Royal Free Hospital and darting down another street.

I believed I knew where she headed. The road she’d turned to, Lower Calthorpe Street, led to the prison of Coldbath Fields, also known as the Steel. Her young man was there, Mrs. Compton had told me, banged up for theft.

However, I did not see Bessie as I neared the high walls that surrounded the prison. A gate stood not far from me, guarded by four men, but Bessie was nowhere in sight.