“What happened?” Orion asked over her head in a low voice. “Mr. Adams tells me you found a woman—dead—in-in—He said that Rebecca—that Mrs. Malvern,” he corrected himself shakily, “—is-is gone, fled—”

“Did you see her yesterday?” asked Abigail.

“Yesterday evening, yes. That’s what I was telling Mr. Adams. I went there just after eight, to pick up the proofs for the sermons she is correcting for me, and a broadside about the meeting Tuesday against the tea tax.” Just about the only printing business that remained to him, Abigail knew, was that done for the Sons of Liberty. And even in that he was becoming less and less reliable, as he struggled to balance caring for his mother with making a living.

“Did Mrs. Malvern say anything about meeting someone there later?”

Hazlitt shook his head. “She said she had sewing yet to finish for that Tillet harpy, and after that was going to bed. I was ashamed to keep her up, waiting even that late for me. But that wretched witch Queenie spies on her. The Tillets would put her out, if they thought she was meeting a man. The woman you found—”

“We have no idea who she is. Clearly she’s wealthy. She had on diamond earrings—”

“They threw her down from the window.” Mrs. Hazlitt raised her head, blinked sleepily up at Abigail. “She tir’d her head, and painted her face, and called out to Jehu as he drove his chariot into the court. They threw her down from the window. Her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the legs of the horses, and the horses trode her underfoot. When they came to bury her, there was naught left of Jezebel the Queen, save her skull, and her feet, and the palms of her hands.” She tucked her son’s hand a little more closely beneath her cheek, and drifted off again into her dreams.

Abigail looked around the little room again, at the messy hearth, and the candlesticks clotted with tallow and the few dishes containing nothing but bread crumbs and butter-smears. There was a stain on the whitewashed plaster of the wall, where food had been recently thrown. “Have you no one to look after her?” she asked. “Or yourself, for that matter—”

“The girl chose yesterday afternoon to go off and visit her family,” sighed Hazlitt. “She should be back tomorrow. I shall manage. It isn’t the first time.”

Presumably, reflected Abigail, any girl willing to work for what Hazlitt could pay, and put up with Mrs. Hazlitt into the bargain, was not to be turned out no matter how flagrantly she took advantage of her employer.

“Have you called the Watch?” asked the printer.