Death of a Stranger - Anne Perry [71]
And yet the brothel in Leather Lane where his body was found denied all knowledge of him. They said that not only had he not been there for business that night, he had never been.
Monk was alternately cajoling and threatening, but not one woman changed her words, and in spite of general opinion of their honesty, and the fact that Baltimore had undoubtedly been found there, he found to his surprise that he believed them. Of course he was also aware that he was far from the first person to have asked, and they had had more than enough time to compare stories with each other and determine a united front.
Still, Abel Smith’s dubious and far from attractive establishment was not the sort of place one expected a man of Baltimore’s wealth to frequent. But tastes were individual; some men liked dirt, others danger. Yet he knew of none who liked disease—except of course those already infected.
At the end of two days he was little wiser.
He turned his attention to Dalgarno, surprised how much he dreaded what he would find. And the search itself was not easy. Dalgarno was a man who seemed to do a great many things alone. It was not difficult to establish what time he had left the offices of Baltimore and Sons. A few enquiries of the desk elicited that information, but it was of little use. Dalgarno had left at six o’clock, five hours before Baltimore had been picked up by a hansom and taken to the corner of the Gray’s Inn Road.
A newsboy had seen someone who was almost certainly Dalgarno go into the Baltimore house, and half an hour later Jarvis Baltimore go in also, but he had left the street before eight, and no one that Monk could question knew anything further. The Baltimore servants would know, but he had no authority to speak to them and could think of no excuse. Even if he could have, Baltimore could have been killed at any time after midnight and before dawn. No enquiry showed one way or the other whether Dalgarno had been in his rooms all night. Exit and entry were easy, and there was no postman or other servant to see.
He spoke to the gingerbread seller on the corner fifty yards away, a small, spare man who looked as if he could profit from a thick slice of his own wares and a hot cup of tea. He had seen Dalgarno returning home at about half past nine in the evening of Baltimore’s death. Dalgarno had been walking rapidly, his face set in a mask of fury, his hat jammed hard on his head, and he had passed without a word. However, the gingerbread seller had packed up shortly after that and gone home, so he had no idea whether Dalgarno had gone out again or not.
The constable on night duty might know. He patrolled this way now and then. But he gave Monk a lopsided grin and half a wink. He did have a certain acquaintance who frequented these streets on less-open business; give him a few days and he would make enquiries.
Monk gave him half a crown, and promised him another seven to make up a sovereign, if he would do as he suggested. Only Monk would need more than a word secondhand; if there were anything, he must speak to the witness himself. What anybody else’s business was in the street would remain unknown, and unquestioned.
The constable thought for a moment or two, then agreed. Monk thanked him, said he would be back in three or four days, and took his leave.
It was about three in the afternoon, cold and gusty, gray with coming rain. He could do no more about Dalgarno and Baltimore’s death for now. It was probably exactly what it looked to be, and everyone assumed. He could no longer put off the search he had known from the beginning he would have to make. He must go back to Arrol Dundas’s trial and see if the details would shake loose his memory at last, and he could remember what he had known then, the fraud, how it was discovered, and above all his own part in it.
He did not know where the trial had been, but all deaths were recorded and the files held here in London. He knew sufficient details to find the file, and