He hesitated. Rubbed his mouth. It was, after all, a lot of money. Finally, he sighed. “Tell the undertakers they must come up the back way by Little Britain into Well Yard to collect her. By six tonight.”

“I will.” I picked up his pen and drew a thick line through the half-finished entry in his ledger, obliterating the words. “She was never here. Is that clear?” Reginald nodded as I returned his pen to its rest.

Evan opened the door, the arrival of some slightly less fetid air from the corridor a welcome reprieve from the stink.

“We were not here either,” he said, every distinct word holding a warning. “You never saw us.”

Reginald picked up the coins and returned to his chair. “Of course not. It is just me and the dead here.” He pocketed the money. “Always just me and the dead.”

19

The hackney I hailed outside the meat market had, unlike the one I had taken to Covent Garden, retained its stained upholstery but still reeked of the sweaty humanity that had passed through it. Perhaps it was a characteristic of such travel in London—I did not know since I usually took my own carriage.

Evan took the bodkin seat, opposite me, and shut the carriage door, muffling the morning cacophony of Giltspur Street and the free surgery queue outside Bart’s. I thumped my fist on the wall to let the driver—who, on seeing our shabbiness, had insisted on being paid in advance—know that he could leave. We jolted forward, finally on our way back to Grosvenor Square.

Evan took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “You are sending undertakers?”

“The same who dealt with my father. They are discreet. I will instruct them to take Miss Hollis back to her family in Whixley once Mr. Kent has viewed her body as evidence. I thought it prudent not to scare Reginald by announcing an imminent visit from a Bow Street Runner.”

“Indeed, he is a skittish one.” Evan scrubbed at his eyes, then replaced his hat. “Sending her back to her family is a great kindness and one that will hopefully give them some solace. Even so, I think it must be done anonymously. They may wish to find their benefactor and demand more answers than we can afford to supply.”

I had planned to do so anyway but gave a nod. We both looked out the window, a few silent seconds of memorial for Miss Hollis.

“So, Sally Lawrence may have been pregnant,” Evan said, drawing us back to the situation at hand.

“If the dissection entry is actually Sally Lawrence—we have no way of knowing if that is the case,” I said. And as the reality of that sank in, I added more gloomily, “Or proving it. Or even if she was related to the doctor who attended the duel.”