Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [77]
“Resurrection Row!” he bellowed at the driver.
The man pulled a fearsome face but wheeled his horse round and started back, muttering angrily under his breath about darkness and graveyards, and what he hoped would happen to residents of such places if they hired cabs they could not pay for.
Pitt almost fell out at the other end, shoving coins at the alarmed driver, and strode down along the barely lit pavement to find number fourteen, where Horrie Snipe’s widow lived.
He had to knock and shout loudly enough to make a nuisance and send windows opening along the street with cries of abuse before she came to the door.
“All right!” she said furiously. “All right!” She opened it and glared at him; then, as she recognized him, her expression changed. “What do you want?” she said incredulously. “ ’Orrie’s dead, and buried twice! You oughta know that! It was you w’ot came wiv ’im the second time. Don’t say someone’s dug ’im up again?”
“No, Maizie, everything’s fine. Can I come in?”
“If you ’ave to. What do you want?”
He squeezed in past her. The room was small, but there was a fire burning strongly, and it was much cleaner than he would have expected. There was even rather a good pair of candlesticks on the mantel shelf, polished pewter, and lace antimacassars over the backs of the chairs.
“Well?” she demanded impatiently. “I ain’t got nuffink in ’ere as isn’t mine—if that’s what you’re thinking!”
“It wasn’t what I was thinking.” He pulled out the picture. “Do you know her, Maizie?”
She took it between her finger and thumb gingerly. “An’ what if I do?”
“There’s ten shillings in it for you,” he said rashly. “If you give me her name and where I can find her.”
“Bertha Mulligan,” she said, without hesitation. “Lodges with Mrs. Cuff, down at number one thirty-seven, straight down on the left-’and side. But you won’t find ’er at ’ome this time o’ the evening. I shouldn’t wonder. Beginning work about now.”
“Doing what?”
She gave a snort of disgust at his stupidity for asking. “On the streets, o’ course. Probably up in one of them cafes near the ’Aymarket. Good-lookin’ girl, Bertha.”
“I see. And does Mrs. Cuff have other lodgers?”
“If you mean does she run an ’ouse, then I says go and look for yourself. I don’t talk about me neighbors, same as I don’t expect no gossip about me, nor poor ’Orrie, when ’e was alive.”
“I see. Thank you, Maizie.”
“Where’s my ten bob?”
He fished in his pocket and brought out string, a knife, sealing wax, three pieces of paper, a packet of toffees, two keys, and about a pound’s worth of change. He counted out ten shillings for her, reluctantly; it had been a promise made in the heat of discovery. But her hand was out, and there was no going back on it. She snatched it, checking it minutely.
“Thank you.” She closed her grip on it like a dying man’s and put it into the reaches of her underskirts. “That’s Bertha, all right. Why do you want to know?”
“Her picture was found in a dead man’s house,” he replied.
“Murdered?”
“Yes.”
“Who was it, then?”
“Godolphin Jones, the artist.” She might not have heard of him. Probably she could not read, and the murder would be of little interest in this quarter.
She did not seem in the least surprised.
“Stupid girl,” she said imperturbably. “I told ’er not to go posin’ for ’im; better to stick to what she knows. But not ’er, would try to better ’erself. Greedy, she was. I never like things on paper, meself; only leads to trouble.”
He grabbed at her arm without thinking, and she pulled away sharply.
“You knew she posed for Godolphin Jones?” he demanded, holding onto her.
“Of course I did!” she snapped. “Do you take me for a fool? I know what goes on in that shop of ’is!”
“Shop! What shop?”
“That shop of ’is a number forty-seven, of course, where ’e takes all the photographs and sells them. Disgusting, I calls it. I can understand a man who wants a girl and can’t get one for ’isself, like what ’Orrie used to provide for; but one what gets ’is fun out o’ lookin’ at pictures, now that’s what I call un’ealthy!”
A flood of understanding washed