“Now, Mother,” he said carefully (Abigail was well acquainted with what happened if one contradicted her), “ ’tis only Mrs. Adams. Surely you know Mrs. Adams? It’s quite dark, you just can’t see well—” Which was true. Winter dusk set in at four, and it was pitch-black now, though six was only just striking from the tower of the Meeting House in Brattle Square. A few tallow candles had been lit, but their feeble glow showed Abigail that very little had been accomplished in the way of cleaning. “You shouldn’t have,” he said, when Abigail uncovered her basket, and she thought he looked ready to weep, with exhaustion and gratitude.

“Nonsense. Even whores of Babylon can see when their neighbors need help. I can help you upstairs with her,” she added, glancing toward Mrs. Hazlitt, who had subsided into a stertorous doze. Two of the flat, square black bottles stood on the table, one empty on its side; there was another on the chimney breast. How bad had she been, that he’d needed to dose her so?

“Thank you.” He shook his head. “I think I’ll let her go as late as I can—a few hours anyway. ’Tis easier—you’ll pardon me saying so—taking her out to the privy in this state, than it is managing a chamber pot. She’s just . . .” He flinched, the muscles in his jaw suddenly tight. “It has been a bad day.”

“No word of Rebecca?”

He shook his head. “I was going to ask you the same. I haven’t been out, but Mr. Adams—Sam Adams—must have sent word, if she had . . .” His words fumbled, and he looked aside. Flinching, Abigail thought, from the inevitable conclusion, that the man who has murdered Perdita Pentyre has killed her, too.

And why not? If she had gotten out of the house, if he had run her down in the alley or the rain-hammered dark of the street, would he have carried her body back to the house?

Bracingly, she said, “If he left one body for all the world to find, he would have left two. We’ve learned who the murdered woman was, though: Perdita Pentyre.”

He blinked at her, almost as if he did not recognize the name, then seemed to come to himself a little and said, “Perdita Pentyre? Colonel Leslie’s—” He bit back the word mistress , as if he thought Abigail had never heard the word and didn’t know what one was, and cleared his throat.

“I’ll tell you of it later.” She glanced at the slumbering woman by the fire. “Will that wretched girl of yours be back tomorrow?”

“I hope so. Damnation isn’t so bad—”

“What?” Abigail blinked at the non sequitur.