Through the gap, I watched them walk to the curtain and pull it back.

“There’s only one. I thought he said there was goin’ to be two this time,” Blue Neckerchief said.

John Bull turned and scanned the room again, frowning. “There ain’t another.”

Beside me, Jenny shifted in alarm, her breath quickening. I leaned against her slightly, willing her to stay still.

Finally, John Bull shrugged. “Never been two before. Deaf fool must have got it wrong.”

“At least they already bagged it,” Blue Neckerchief said. “Coulda tied the top proper, though.”

“You get the head, Gib, I’ll get the feet.”

Ah, so Blue Neckerchief was the expected dustman called Gibbon. That made the other man Reed. And Gib and Reed knew what they carried.

“Not on yer life,” Gib said. “I’ll take the feet.”

With some muttering, Reed switched places and, with little ceremony and less care, they hoisted the sack up between them. In that moment, I hated them almost as much as I hated the men who had murdered Miss Hollis and tried to strangle Jenny. They shuffled their burden to the steps, moving out of sight. We heard the slow creaking ascent amid gruff instructions and muttered curses, and then the footsteps receded, became muffled thumps and scrapes, until all was silent again.

“I think they are gone,” I whispered.

Cautiously, I pushed open the wardrobe door. As expected, the chamber was empty.

With some inelegance, we extracted ourselves from the wardrobe. The rush of fear had, it seemed, restored some of Jenny’s strength, for she stood without assistance and her eyes were no longer dazed.

I crossed to the staircase. Empty, too, and no more sounds of obscene haulage. I did, however, hear a faint, familiar squawk of metal. The gate. “I think they are out of the house. In the yard.”

On that report of comparative safety, Jenny walked—almost steadily—to the side table and grabbed one of the silver candlesticks. “I’m takin’ this,” she said with a challenge in her bloodied eyes.

“You should take them all,” Evan said. He returned to the wardrobe and pulled out the hessian sack. “Here, use this.”

Jenny cocked her head at such unexpected amiability, then took the offered bag with a nod of agreement. All three candlesticks were quickly shoved into its depths, their clank and clash loud in the room.

“Not so loud,” I said, holding up my palms as if I could muffle the noise. “We do not want them to hear us and come back.”

“What you two gents doin’ here, anyway?” Jenny asked, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I’m grateful an’ all that, but you ain’t bad coves like them two up there.”

I looked at Evan. “We are trying to find out what happens to the girls who do not come out.”

“Well, now you know,” she said dryly, pointing to the heavens.