Bethlehem Road - Anne Perry [113]
Pitt fished in his pocket and pulled out a few pence and offered them to her. “Blue violets, please—or—just a moment, what about the white ones?”
“They’s extra, cos they smells sweeter. White flars orften does. Ter make up fer the color p’raps?”
“Then give me some of each, if you will.”
“There y’are, luv—but I still didn’t see nuffin.’ I can’t ’elp yer. Wish I could!”
“But you remember selling flowers to Sir Lockwood Hamilton?”
“Yeah, course I do! Sold ’im flars reg’lar. Nice gent ’e was, poor soul. Never ’aggled, like some as I could name. Some gents wot ’as fortunes’ll ’aggle over a farvin’.” She sighed heavily, and Pitt imagined her life; a quarter of a penny on a bunch of flowers meant a difference to her, and she was only mildly indignant that men who ate nine-course dinners as a way of life would argue with her over the cost of a slice of bread.
“Do you remember that night? It was an unusually late sitting.”
“Bless yer, they ’as late sittin’s an’ late sittin’s,” she said with a wink rather more like a twitch. “Wot was they sittin’ over, eh? An argy-bargy, new laws fer us all—or a good bottle o’ port wine?”
“It was a fine night, nice enough to walk home with pleasure. Go over it all again in your mind for me. Please. Did you have supper? What did you eat? Did you buy it from someone here?”
“That’s right!” she said with sudden cheer. “I got some pickled eels an’ a slice of ’ot bread down Jacko’s stand, ’long the Embankment.”
“Then what? What time was that?”
“Dunno, luv.”
“Yes you do. You would have heard Big Ben—think! You’d be waiting to catch the Members as they left the House.”
She screwed up her face. “I ’eard ten—but that was afore I went down ter Jacko’s.”
“Did you hear eleven? Where were you when Big Ben struck eleven?”
Someone else came past and bought a bunch of purple violets before she replied. “I was talkin’ ter Jacko. ’E said as it was a good night fer trade, and folk was still abaht, it bein’ fine like. An’ I said that was good, cos I’d gorn an’ got an extra load o’ flars, and they don’t last.”
“And then you came back up here sometime before the House rose,” he prompted.
“No,” she said, deep in thought, her brow furrowed. “That’s wot I din’ do! I got fed up wiv waitin’ fer ’em, an I went up ter the Strand and the theaters. Sold all me flars there, I did.”
“You can’t have,” Pitt argued. “That must have been another night. You sold flowers to Sir Lockwood Hamilton. Primroses. He was wearing fresh flowers when he was killed, and he didn’t have them when he left the House a few minutes before he crossed the bridge.”
“Primroses? I don’t ’ave no primroses. Violets, me, this time o’ year. All sorts later on, but violets now.”
“Never primroses?” Pitt said carefully, a strange and dreadfully sensible idea opening up in his mind. “Would you swear to that?”
“Gor lumme! D’yer fink I sold flars all me life since I were six years old, and don’ know the difference between a primrose nor a violet? Wot yer take me for?”
“Then who gave the primroses to Sir Lockwood Hamilton?”
“Someone wot poached my beat!” she said sourly. Then her face eased in innate fairness. “Not as I didn’t go up the Strand, wot in’t stric’ly my place, but ...” She shrugged. “Sorry, ducky.”
“I suppose you didn’t sell primroses to Mr. Etheridge, or Mr. Sheridan either?”
“I told yer, I never sold primroses to no one!”
Pitt thrust his hands deep into his pockets and pulled out a sixpence. He gave it to her and took two more bunches of flowers.
“Well then, I wonder who did.”
“Cor!” She let out her breath in a moan of incredulity, which turned to horror. “The Westminster Cutthroat! ’E sold ’em! Don’ it fair make yer blood cold? It do mine!”
“Thank you!” Pitt turned on his heel and walked rapidly away, then started to run, shouting and waving his arms for a cab.
“A flower seller?” Micah Drummond repeated, his brow puckered in surprise. He turned the thought over in his mind, examining it and finding it more and more acceptable.
“It gives me something to look for,” Pitt said eagerly. “In a way, flower sellers are