Blind Justice

CHAPTER 1

Hester let the Hansom cab pass, then crossed Portpool Lane and went in through the door to the clinic for sick and injured prostitutes.

Ruby saw her and her scarred face lit up with welcome.

“Is Miss Raleigh in?” Hester asked.

Ruby’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, ma’am, but she don’t look right. I thought as she were ’andmade for the job, like, but this mornin’ you’d’a thought she’d got left at the altar. All weepin’ an’ can’t believe it, like.”

Hester was stunned. When she had hired Josephine a few weeks earlier, the girl had said she was not courting and had no intention of giving up nursing in any imaginable future.

“Where is she? Do you know?” she asked.

“We got someone in all beat up, blood everywhere. She’ll be seein’ to ’er,” Ruby replied. “That were ’alf an hour ago, mind.”

“Thank you.” Hester went through the far door and along the passageway, asking after Josephine each time she encountered someone. In the old pantry where they kept medical supplies she finally found her, moving between the shelves, counting and sorting. She was a pretty girl, perhaps too much character in her face to be conventionally beautiful. Now her cheeks were stained with tears, her eyes were blank, and her lips were pressed so tight the muscles were visible along her jaw and in her neck. It was clear that she did not even hear Hester come in.

Hester closed the door to give them complete privacy before she spoke. As always, she was direct. Medicine, she had found, was not an art that allowed for much roundabout conversation.

“What’s wrong?” she asked gently.

Startled, Josephine swung round to face Hester. She was blinking rapidly as the uncontrolled tears slid down her face.

“I’m sorry. I’ll … I’ll be all right in a moment.” She was clearly ashamed at being caught giving way to her distress, whatever it was.

Hester put her hand ever so gently on Josephine’s arm. “Something must be very wrong for you to be so upset by it. You’ve seen terrible wounds and nursed the dying. Something that hurts you so much isn’t going to be dealt with in a few minutes. Tell me what it is.”

Josephine shook her head. “You can’t help with this,” she answered, her voice choking in her throat. “I … I need to work. Really …”

Hester did not loosen her grip.

“There’s nothing that anyone can do,” Josephine repeated, still attempting to pull away.

Hester hesitated. Would it be intrusive if she insisted? She liked this young woman on a deep, instinctive level; she reminded Hester of herself, years ago. And Hester knew exactly the pain and loneliness one felt when starting out in the profession. She had felt the overwhelming sense of helplessness that comes when witnessing the realities of physical agony and death, the moment when things go beyond anyone’s reach and all you can do is watch. All that, on top of the ordinary heartache of life and youth-it had been a difficult burden to bear when she was younger. Even now, at times.

“Tell me anyway,” she said gently.

Josephine hesitated, and then straightened herself with an effort. She swallowed hard and fished for a handkerchief to blow her nose.

Hester waited, leaving the door closed. No one else could come in without a key.

“My mother died a long time ago,” Josephine began. “My father and I have become very close.” She took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice level, almost emotionless, as if she were recounting figures in a calculation, something with no personal weight. “He has been going to a Nonconformist church for just over a year now. He found many friends among the congregation. He said there was a degree of warmth in it that appealed to him more than the ritual of the Church of England, which he found … cold.” She swallowed hard again.

Hester did not interrupt. So far there was nothing odd, let alone disastrous, in what Josephine was saying. She hadn’t known Josephine long, but the girl did not strike her as the type to care exactly which religion her father followed, as long as it was broadly Christian, so that couldn’t be the cause of her distress.

Josephine took another shaky breath. “He told me that they do a great deal of good work, both here in England and abroad. They need money to provide food, medicines, clothes, and so on, for those in desperate circumstances.” She searched Hester’s face for understanding.

“It sounds a very Christian thing to do.” Hester filled in the silence. Then a thought occurred to her. “Oh dear-did your father discover that was not what they were using the money for?”

Josephine looked startled. “Oh no! No, it wasn’t that. They just … they wanted so much! They pressured him for more and more. He is not a wealthy man, but he always speaks well, dresses well … if you know what I mean? Perhaps they thought he was wealthier than he is …”

Hester began to understand where this might lead.

Josephine was watching her intently now. Her voice wavered. “They kept on asking him, and he was embarrassed to decline. It isn’t easy to say you can’t afford any more, especially when they tell you people are starving, and you know that you can eat whenever you wish, even if it is a modest meal.”

Hester looked at the pain in the young woman’s face, in her eyes, at the clenched hands gripping the handkerchief. She seemed frightened, embarrassed, and racked with sadness.

“They pressed him into giving them much more than he could afford?” Hester asked quietly.

Josephine nodded, her jaw clenched hard to help her control the emotion that welled up inside her.

“Is the debt serious?” Hester continued.

Josephine nodded again, the hopelessness clear in her face. She looked down, as if to avoid the condemnation she obviously expected to see in Hester’s eyes.

Hester was overwhelmed by a sudden, wrenching memory of her own father, as she had seen him before she left for the Crimea, a dozen years ago, when this young woman was but a child. He had been so proud of her, seeing her off on a noble enterprise. She could smell the salt on the wind again, hear the gulls crying and the creak of ropes as the ship rose and fell, straining against its moorings.

That was the last time she had ever seen him. The reasons for his falling into debt had been different than Mr. Raleigh’s reasons, even if they had also been tied to his compassion and sense of honor; but the pain his debt caused his family was the same. He too had been pressured and then cheated. The shame of it had caused him to take his own life. Hester had been away in the Crimea, nursing men she did not even know, and her family had faced that grief without her. Her mother had been almost unable to bear it and died shortly after the news of her second son’s death in the Crimea reached her.

Hester had arrived home in England to face her one remaining brother’s bereavement and his fury that she had not been there when she was so badly needed, that she had spent her time and her pity on strangers instead.

They were still distant, no more between them than the occasional exchange of Christmas cards, the odd stiff letter in formal language now and then.

Hester understood sorrow, guilt, helplessness, and the lethal burden of debt more intimately than Josephine Raleigh could have imagined.

She realized that Josephine was gazing at her now, confused. She felt foolish for drifting off into her own memories.

“I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I was thinking of someone I loved … someone who also suffered, in a similar way. I wasn’t able to help him because I was in the Crimea with the army. I didn’t come home until it was too late. How deep is your father’s debt?”

“Very,” Josephine said quietly. “Much more than he can pay. I’ve given him everything I have, but it’s far too late. And I can’t earn enough to-” She stopped. There was no point in explaining what was so obvious.

Hester’s mind raced, searching for something to say that might help; her painful memories still churned, the hopelessness, the despair of being too late to help, and the ache she still felt to turn back time and do everything differently. When she spoke her voice was husky. “I imagine these people ask every member of the congregation whom they think might have anything to give to donate?”

Josephine gulped. “Yes … I … I think so.”

Footsteps sounded in the passage outside, hesitated, then went on.

“Well. Maybe there is something dishonest about the whole thing,” Hester said thoughtfully. “To pressure people that way isn’t … right … even if it’s not illegal. Maybe there was a reason. I don’t know. I will ask my husband. He is a police officer. There might be something we can do.”

Josephine’s face filled with distress. “Oh no! Please don’t … my father would be mortified! The shame would be-” She gulped again and all but choked. “It would make him look as if he were … reluctant to have given charity to those in far more need than any of us. It would be-”

“Josephine!” Hester said quickly, feeling the heat wash up her face. “Of course I wouldn’t reveal his name or his circumstances to anyone. I have no intention of being so clumsy. I am aware that would humiliate him.”

Josephine shook her head. “You don’t understand-”

“Yes I do,” Hester replied. She took a minute to weigh her next words before continuing. “The man I was thinking of a minute ago was my own father. I think the shame of what happened to him was what killed him. So I do understand. I shall look into this as far as I can, without mentioning any names, I promise you.”

Josephine was still uncertain. “If he finds out, he will think I’ve betrayed him.”

“He won’t know anything of it,” Hester promised again. “Don’t you think he would want to prevent others from suffering in the same way? And for that matter, I would be surprised if he is the only one of the congregation in this position. Wouldn’t you?”

“I … I suppose so. But how will you do it?”

“I don’t know yet. Perhaps I will have no clear idea until I try,” Hester admitted. “But if people are being forced into this position, it must be stopped.”

Josephine gave a very slight smile. “Thank you.”

Hester smiled back at her. “Where is this church, and what is the name of the man who leads it?”

“Abel Taft is his name. The church is on the corner of Wilmington Square and Yardley Street,” Josephine replied, frowning. “But you live on the south side of the river, miles away! How will you explain going to a church up there?”

Hester smiled more widely. “Their reputation for true and active Christianity, of course!” she replied sarcastically.

Josephine laughed in spite of herself, and tears of gratitude filled her eyes. She shook herself abruptly, straightened her shoulders, and smoothed the skirt of the gray dress. “I have work to do,” she said more steadily. “I’m all behind myself.”

There were times, especially in the winter, when William Monk found his duties as commander of the Thames River Police to be more arduous than usual. The knife-edge of ice on the wind across the open water could cut through almost anything, except oilskins. It whipped the flesh raw on exposed cheeks and froze the heavy cloth of trouser legs when the rain or the river water dampened them.

But this late spring evening was balmy, and over the shining water arched a pale blue, almost cloudless sky. The breeze was welcome, the tide was high, and there were no naked banks exposed, which meant there was no dank smell of mud. Pleasure boats passed by with colored banners waving, laughter drifting toward the shore where a hurdy-gurdy played a popular song from the current music-hall shows. All the warm hope of summer lay ahead. It was a perfect time to be finishing a patrol on the river and thinking of going home.

Monk had always managed a boat easily. It was one of the skills from his forgotten past, although his memory of how he acquired the ability had been obliterated by an injury in a carriage crash, just before he had first met Hester, nine years ago, in 1856. It always fascinated him that the mind could erase all sorts of things that the body seemed to recall.

With ease he brought the police boat to the bottom of the dock steps, shipped the oars, and stepped out with the mooring rope in his hand. He tied it loosely so that later on the receding water would not strain it and walked up the steps to make his final report at the station.

He spoke briefly with Orme, his second in command, made a last check of everything else, and half an hour later he was back on the water again-this time as passenger in a ferry as it approached the dock at Princes Stairs, on the south bank at Rotherhithe.

He paid the fare and walked up the hill toward his home on Paradise Place, the panorama of the Pool of London behind him, black masts and cross spars against the fading sky, water still as polished silk.

He found Hester in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove, and Scuff, the onetime mudlark they had adopted-or, more accurately who had adopted them-sitting hopefully at the table, waiting for supper. He had been more or less resident for nearly two years now and was beginning to take them rather more for granted, as if finally he had accepted that this was his home, that they would not suddenly change their minds and turn him out back onto the dockside.

He had grown considerably since they had taken him in. There was a lot of difference between a half-starved boy of eleven-Scuff’s own estimate of his age, though they couldn’t confirm it-and a boy of thirteen, who eats at every possible opportunity, mealtimes or not. He was several inches taller and was beginning to appear less angular; he no longer looked as if a sharp twist would break his bones.

He was also beginning to acquire a rather self-conscious dignity. Instead of unabashed pleasure, he now welcomed Monk with a grin, but remained seated, far too grown up to give away his emotions.

Smiling to himself, Monk acknowledged Scuff equally casually and went over to Hester to give a much warmer and completely spontaneous greeting. They spoke of the day and its events. Scuff reported on his time at school, an experience that was only slowly becoming familiar to him. It had not been easy; he had always been able to count, and he knew the value of money to the farthing. As a child of the docks and the streets around them, he was skeptical, brave, and very able to take care of himself. It was impossible to lose him on the dockside. But learning about other countries remained, to him, a pointless exercise, even though he knew them by name and knew the products they shipped to the Port of London because he had seen them unloaded. He knew what these goods looked like, how they smelled, how large or how heavy they were. However, reading and writing about them, and even spelling their names correctly, was another matter entirely.

Later in the evening, after Scuff had gone to bed and they were in the sitting room, Hester told Monk about Josephine Raleigh’s father and the problem he faced.

“I’m sorry,” Monk said quietly. He looked at her troubled face and could see her pity for the man, and perhaps for young Josephine as well. It was terrible that a church would do this to someone, abuse their faith so. “I wish it were a crime,” he added. “But even if it were, it wouldn’t have any connection with the river, and that’s all I have power to deal with. Do you want me to speak to Runcorn, and see if there’s anything he can suggest?” Superintendent Runcorn had once been Monk’s colleague, long ago, then his superior, and then his enemy. Now finally they had understood and overcome their differences and were allies.

Hester looked suddenly crushed, as if his words had struck an additional blow.

Monk did not understand it. Surely she could not have believed there was a way for him to intervene?

“Hester … I sympathize. It’s a vile thing to do, but the law offers no way of addressing it.”

She looked at him for a moment, and then rose to her feet wearily. “I know.” There was defeat in her voice and an overwhelming misery. She turned to walk away, hesitated a second, then went on, going out of the sitting room back toward the kitchen, her shoulders square but her head bowed a little.

Monk was confused. She had, in a way, closed a door between them. But what had she imagined he might do? He started to rise to go after her, realized he had no idea what to say, and sat down again. He thought of all the years he had known her and the battles they had fought together against fear, injustice, disease, grief … and then memory washed over him, not like a tide so much as a breaking wave, battering and submerging him. Hester’s own father had committed suicide because of a debt he could not honor. She spoke of it so seldom he had allowed himself to forget.

He stood up quickly; he was still not sure what he would say, but it was imperative he find something. How could he have been so stupid, so clumsy as to forget?

He found her in the kitchen, standing by the stove with a saucepan in her hand, but her attention somewhere in the middle distance. She was not moving, and her eyes were filled with tears.

There was no honest excuse to give, but even if there were, it would only make things worse.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I forgot.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

She turned and looked at him at last. “No, it doesn’t. I’d rather you didn’t think of him that way anyhow. But I know how Josephine feels, exactly as if it were me all over again. Except that I wasn’t there when I should have been. Maybe I could have done something if I had been there.”

Monk knew there was nothing she could’ve done, but he also knew she would not believe him if he said so; she would think he was lying automatically to comfort her, although that was something neither of them had ever really done. They had always faced the truth together, however bitter; gently, perhaps slowly-but they had never lied.

“I’ll see if I can find out anything about the people involved.” He said it knowing it was a rash offer, and probably of no use, except to prove that he cared about what troubled her.

She smiled at him, and he saw that she knew exactly what he was doing, and why. However, she was still grateful that he understood and had not evaded helping her.

“I’m going to church on Sunday,” she replied, straightening up a little and replacing a saucepan on its rack. “It’s time Scuff learned something about religion. It’s part of our job as … as parents”-she chose the word deliberately, as if testing it-“to teach him. What he decides to believe is up to him. But I don’t think I’ll go to the Church of England. I’ll find a Nonconformist one.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Monk asked uncertainly.

That was one of the gaps from his amnesia he had never attempted to fill. He knew what he believed about many things, good and evil. Perhaps even more importantly, he understood that an entire lifetime was insufficient to answer all the questions that each new situation raised. It was clear to him that humility was not just a virtue, it was a necessity; but he had not bothered to consider a formal religion. He did not really want to now, but he would if she wished him to.

A glance at her face answered that.

“No, thank you!” she said vehemently, as if for him to come were the last thing she wished. Then she smiled. “But thank you all the same.”

Scuff amazed himself at how easily he had become used to living in Monk’s house in Paradise Place. Occasionally he dreamed he was still back on the docks, sleeping wherever he could find a sheltered place out of the wind or rain and avoid being trodden on or tripped over. He was even used to being warm enough almost all of the time, and clean!

He was still always hungry; but now he ate at regular times, as well as in between, when he could, and he didn’t have to find the food himself, either buy it or steal it. He had become used to the fact that no one would steal it from him.

It was not that he was an orphan, but after his father died his mother had been unable to support her children alone. The new man she had taken in was happy enough with the girls, but he was not willing to house another man’s son, so for the survival of the rest, who were not much more than babies, Scuff had left to look after himself.

He had met Monk when Monk was new to the dockside area and pitifully ignorant of its ways. For the price of an occasional sandwich and a hot cup of tea, Scuff had taken care of him and taught him a few things.

Then together they had taken part in some very unpleasant adventures. After one, when Scuff had come far too close to being killed, he had spent a few nights in Monk’s home. Those few nights had stretched into a few more, and then a few more. Gradually, a step at a time, he had even become used to Hester. He was far too grown up to need a mother, but now and then he didn’t mind pretending that wasn’t the case. Actually, he was not sure if being a mother was even what Hester wanted. She seemed rather more to be a really good friend-but one with considerable authority, of course. He would not have told her so, but he was more in awe of her than he was of Monk himself. She never backed off from anyone. Scuff knew, even if she didn’t, that she needed him to keep an eye out for her.

He should have been more suspicious when she suddenly decided to take him to buy a new suit, a proper one with jacket and trousers that matched, and two white shirts. It was quite true that the clothes he had were rather short. He had grown a lot lately. It must have been all that food, and having to go to bed early. But even so, they would have done a few more months.

Perhaps he should have had a clue when, the same day, she bought herself a new hat. It had flowers on it, and it made her look pretty. He told her so, and then felt awkward. Perhaps it had been too personal a thing to say. But she looked pleased. Maybe she was.

Understanding came like a flash of lightning on Saturday evening.

“Tomorrow morning I am going to church,” she told him, facing him squarely and not even blinking. “I would like you to come with me, if you don’t mind.”

He stood motionless, as if rooted to the kitchen floor. Then he turned to Monk, who was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. Monk raised his eyes and smiled.

“You coming?” Scuff asked nervously. What did it mean? They had never taken him to church before. What would happen there? Some kind of ceremony?

“I can’t,” Monk replied. “I have to go to the station at Wapping. But I’ll be back for Sunday dinner. You’ll be all right. You might find it quite interesting. Do as Hester tells you, and if she doesn’t say anything, copy her.”

Scuff felt panic well up inside him.

“You don’t have to do anything at all,” Hester assured him. “Just come with me, so I don’t have to go by myself.”

He let go his breath-a sigh of relief. He could do that. “Yeah, all right,” he conceded.

They set out on Sunday morning, first across the river, then on an omnibus for what seemed like a considerable distance. Scuff wondered why they were going so far, when he could see they were passing churches much closer. They were rather obvious buildings; apart from having towers that you could see from a quarter of a mile away at least, a lot of them had bells ringing, just to make certain you couldn’t miss them. A couple of times he drew in his breath to point this out to Hester, who was sitting very upright beside him and staring forward. She did not seem like her usual self at all, so he changed his mind and did not ask.

But he did ask a number of the other questions that rose in his mind.

“Does God live only in churches?” he said very quietly to her. He did not want the other people in the omnibus to hear him. They probably all knew the answer and would think he sounded stupid.

She looked a little surprised and instantly he wished he had said nothing. If he paid attention, he would probably have learned the answer anyway.

“No,” she replied. “God is everywhere. I think it’s just that we give him more thought inside churches. Like learning at school. You can learn to read and write anywhere, but school makes it easier to concentrate.”

“Do we have a teacher at church too?” That seemed a reasonable question.

“Yes. He’s called a minister.”

“I see.” That was a bit worrying. “Is he going to make me answer questions at the end?”

“No. No, I won’t let him do that.” She sounded very sure.

He relaxed a little. “Why do we have to go?”

“We don’t have to. I would like to.”

“Oh.” He sat in silence for almost half a mile.

“Will he tell us about heaven?” he asked finally.

“I expect so,” Hester answered. Now she was looking at him, smiling.

He felt encouraged. “Where is heaven?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t think anybody truly does.”

That troubled him. “Then how are we going to get there?”

She looked awkward. “You know, that’s something we’d all like to know, and I have no idea. Perhaps if we go to church often enough and really pay attention, we will figure it out eventually.”

“Do you want to go there? To heaven, I mean?”

“Yes. I think everybody does. It’s just that too many of us don’t desire it enough to do the things that are necessary to get there.”

“Why not? That seems silly,” he pointed out.

“We don’t think about it, or believe in it, hard enough,” she answered. “Sometimes we decide it’s too hard to get there to be worth the trouble, or that we won’t make it anyway, no matter what we do.”

He thought about it for several minutes while the omnibus went up a slight incline, slowing as it did so. The horses must have struggled a bit.

“Well, if you’re not going to heaven, then I don’t think I want to either,” he said at last.

She blinked suddenly, as if she were going to cry, only he knew she wouldn’t because Hester never cried. Then she put her hand on his arm for a moment. He could feel the warmth of it, even through the sleeve of his new jacket.

“I think we should both try to get there,” she told him. “In fact, all three of us should.”

He thought about that and made a note of several other questions he wanted to ask. He would save them for another time-he felt like he had bothered her enough for now. So they rode in silence until the omnibus pulled up at their stop. They walked about fifty yards along the pavement to what looked like a meetinghouse. It was not really a proper church, the kind he had expected with the tower and the bell, but Hester seemed quite sure, so he went in beside her through the large open doors.

Inside there were rows of seats, all very hard, with the sort of backs that made you sit up straight, even if you didn’t want to. There were crowds of people there already. All the women he could see had hats on: big ones, small ones, ones with flowers, ones with ribbons, pale colors, dark colors, but nothing particularly bright, no reds or pinks or yellows. All the men wore dark suits. It must be some kind of uniform, like at school.

They had been there only a few moments when a handsome man came forward, smiling. He had fair, wavy hair touched with silver at the sides. He held his hand out, looking for an instant beyond Hester. Then, realizing there was no man with her, he withdrew his hand and bowed very slightly instead.

“How do you do, ma’am? My name is Abel Taft. May I welcome you to our congregation?”

“Thank you,” Hester said warmly. “I am Mrs. Monk.” She turned to introduce Scuff, and his heart almost stopped beating. Who was she going to say he was? An urchin she and Monk had picked up from the dockside, who knew no other name but Scuff? Would they make him leave?

Taft turned to meet Scuff’s eyes.

Scuff was paralyzed, his mouth as dry as dust.

Hester smiled, her head a little to one side. “My son, William,” she said, with only the barest hesitation.

Scuff found himself smiling so widely his face hurt.

“How do you do, William?” Taft said formally.

“How do you do?” Scuff’s voice came out scratchily. “Sir,” he added for good measure.

Taft was still smiling too, as if his smile were almost fixed on his face. Scuff had seen expressions like that before, on the riverbank, when people were trying to sell you something.

“I hope you will feel uplifted by our service, Mrs. Monk,” Taft said warmly. “And please feel free to ask any questions you care to. I shall hope to see you often and perhaps get to know you a little better. You will find the entire congregation friendly. We have some very fine people here.”

“I am sure,” Hester agreed. “I have already heard so from others.”

“Indeed?” Taft had started to move away but stopped, his attention suddenly renewed. “May I ask whom?”

Hester lowered her eyes. “I think it might embarrass them if I were to say,” she replied modestly. “But it was most sincere, I assure you. I know, at least, that you do a great deal of truly Christian work for those who are not nearly as fortunate as we are.”

“Indeed we do,” he said eagerly. “I am delighted to see that you are interested. I shall look forward to telling you more after the service.”

She looked up at him very directly. “Thank you.”

Scuff regarded her with confusion. He had never seen her behave like this before. Of course, lots of women looked at men like that-but not Hester! What was wrong with her? He did not like the change in her. She had been perfect just as she was.

Hester led him toward a couple of seats near the back of the hall, and they took the rather squashed places as other people moved along a bit to make room. There were certainly far more people present than he had imagined would want to be here. What was going to happen that was worth all this jostling and shoving, not to mention dressing up and wasting a perfectly good Sunday morning? The sun was shining outside, and hardly anybody had to go to work!

He started to pay attention when the service began. Mr. Taft was in charge, telling everybody when to stand, when to sing, and saying prayers on everyone else’s behalf. All they had to do was add “Amen” at the end. He seemed to be full of enthusiasm, as if it were all rather exciting. He waved his arms about a bit, and his face was alight. It was a bit like it was his birthday party and all of them his guests. Scuff had seen a party once for a rich boy whose parents had hired a pleasure boat. There were colored ribbons everywhere and a band playing music. It had stopped at one of the docks and Scuff had crept close enough to watch.

There was music here in this church as well, a big organ playing, and everybody sang. They seemed to know the words. Even Hester did not have to do more than glance at the hymnbook that she held open so he could see it as well. But he had never heard the tune before and got lost very quickly.

Hester gave him a little nudge now and then, or put her hand gently on his arm, to warn him they were about to stand up or sit down again. He noticed that she looked around rather a lot. He thought she was watching to see what they were doing, so she could copy them. Then he realized she knew what to do; she just seemed to be interested, almost as if she were looking for someone in particular.

When it was finished and Scuff assumed they were free to go home again, Hester started speaking to the people around them. That was a bit of a blow, but there was nothing he could do except wait patiently. On the way home he would ask her what it was all for. Why did God want what seemed to be such a pointless exercise? Was the real reason something else altogether, like maybe to keep them all from going out and getting drunk, or to make sure they didn’t just lie around in bed all day? He used to know people who did that.

Hester was talking to Mrs. Taft, who was a very pretty lady, in a fair-haired, soft-blue-eyed sort of way. Scuff had seen a little china statue of a lady like that and been told not to touch it because he might break it.

“It is a marvelous work,” Hester was saying enthusiastically.

Scuff tried to listen. If she cared about all this, there had to be a reason, and he should pay attention too.

“Indeed it is,” Mrs. Taft agreed with a sweet smile. “And we find so much support, it is most heartening. You would be amazed how much even the poorest people manage to give. Surely God will bless them for it. They will have joy in heaven.” She looked as if she really meant it. Her eyes were shining, and there was a faint flush of pink in her cheeks. She wore a lovely hat decked with flowers in all sorts of colors. Scuff knew they weren’t real, but they almost looked it. Hester would look prettier than this woman in a hat like that, but it probably cost more than a week of dinners for all of them.

“Do you not worry about them though?” Hester asked anxiously.

Mrs. Taft looked puzzled.

“What will happen to them, between here and heaven, I mean,” Hester added in explanation.

“God will take care of them,” Mrs. Taft replied with gentle reproof.

Hester bit her lip. Scuff had seen that expression before. He knew she wanted to say something but had decided against it.

They were joined by two girls, a few years older than Scuff and looking a lot like grown-ups already, proper ladies’ shapes, their hair in ringlets, and straw hats with ribbons on their heads. They were introduced as Mrs. Taft’s daughters, Jane and Amelia. The conversation continued about generous donations to the wonderful work the church was doing for the unfortunate, especially in some distant and unnamed part of the world.

Scuff was extremely bored and his attention wandered again, this time toward some of the other members of the congregation. A lot of the women were older than Hester and rather fat. Those closest to him creaked a little when they moved, like the timbers of a ship on the tide. They looked unhappy. He supposed they might be late for luncheon and resented being kept in pointless conversations. He sympathized with them. He was hungry too-and tired of this. One of them caught his eye, and he smiled at her tentatively. She smiled back at him, then her husband glared at her and she stopped instantly.

Why was Hester still here? She didn’t know these people, and she certainly wasn’t talking to God, or listening to him. Yet she still looked very interested.

She looked even more interested when she was introduced to a good-looking man with thick, dark hair and a rather prominent nose. His name was apparently Robertson Drew, and he spoke to Hester in a condescending manner. His glance took in her costume and her new hat, and then her reticule and the fact that her boots were a little worn at the toes.

Scuff disliked him immediately.

“How do you do, Mrs. Monk?” Drew said with a smile that barely showed his teeth. “Welcome to our congregation. I hope you will join us regularly. And this is your son?” He looked momentarily at Scuff and then back to Hester. “Perhaps your husband will be able to be with us in future?”

Scuff thought the likelihood of that was about the same as the chances of finding a gold sovereign in the drain.

“I shall do all I can to persuade him,” Hester said smoothly. “Please tell me more about your charitable work, Mr. Drew. I confess it was report of that which brought me here. I live some distance away, but it seems to me most pastors speak a great deal about charity, but practice very little.”

“Ah! How perceptive you are, Mrs. Monk,” Drew agreed fervently. Suddenly he was all interest. He put out his hand as if to take Hester by the arm. Scuff was ready to kick his shins hard if he actually touched her, but he took his hand away again at the last minute and started to speak intently about all that the church had done for the needy.

Hester listened as if she were spellbound. Even to Scuff, who knew that it couldn’t be entirely real, it looked as if she genuinely cared.

Then Scuff realized that she was not precisely pretending. She was asking questions. She wanted to know but not for the reasons he had first assumed. A tingle of excitement ran through him. They were not here to sing hymns and repeat prayers-she was investigating something!

Now he began to listen closely, even though he did not yet understand what she was looking to find out.

Drew noticed his attention with pleasure, and he began to direct his speech to both of them.

They escaped at last outside into the sunlight, walking rapidly toward the nearest main street where they could catch an omnibus to the river and then the ferry home. Scuff challenged Hester almost at once. “Ye’re detecting, aren’t yer?”

She hesitated, then gave up and smiled. “I’m trying to. Thank you for helping me.”

“I didn’t do nothing.”

“Anything,” she corrected him automatically.

“I still didn’t. What did any of ’em do, ’side from being about as straight as a pig’s tail?”

“Was that your impression?” she said curiously. “What makes you think that?”

“I seen that look on an opulent receiver’s face, one who’s trying to sell yer gold when ’e knows it’s pinchbeck,” he replied.

“That’s very unkind, Scuff-and probably true,” she said, trying to keep the amusement out of her face and failing. An opulent receiver was the slang term for a receiver of stolen goods who specialized in expensive and hard-to-sell things.

“Now what are we going ter do?” he asked, taking it for granted that he was part of the plan.

She walked several yards without answering.

He kept pace with her. His legs were long enough now. He was almost the same height as her, and in a year or two he would definitely be taller. He wondered what that would feel like. He was still wondering when she answered.

“I shall weigh up all I know, which I admit is not a lot, and then I shall go and see Squeaky Robinson, at the clinic.”

“Why?” He knew Squeaky Robinson a little. He used to be a brothel keeper, until Sir Oliver Rathbone had tricked him out of the buildings he owned and used. Now those buildings were the clinic Hester ran for street women. Squeaky had had nowhere else to go and no means of earning his living. Protesting indignantly all the way, he had accepted their offer to earn his lodgings by keeping the accounts of the new establishment-which he did remarkably well. He certainly knew about money, and he understood that his survival depended on being honest to the farthing.

“Because if they really have been dishonest, Squeaky Robinson is the one person who might catch them,” she replied.

“How will ’e know?”

“I’m not certain yet,” she said reasonably. “But because they are a charity, they must account for their money. It won’t be easy to catch them out if they are doing something dishonest with it, but it’s worth trying.”

“Why?” he asked. “I mean, why are we doing it?”

“Because they have ruined the father of someone I like,” she told him. “Someone who seems quite a lot like me when I was younger. And I suppose because a long time ago, someone did that to my father too, and I wasn’t there to help him.”

He looked at her face and saw the sadness and the guilt in it. He knew this was not the time to ask anything more.

“Righto,” he replied. “I’ll ’elp.”

“Thank you. Now let’s hurry up and get the next omnibus home to lunch.”

Hester went to the clinic in Portpool Lane on Monday morning as usual, and, as usual, attended first to the urgent medical matters, then the household ones. Lastly she went into Squeaky Robinson’s office to inquire about the state of the finances.

Squeaky was a scrawny, cadaverous man of uncertain years, somewhere between fifty and sixty. He greeted her with his usual dour expression. “Could always use more money,” he answered her question. “But we aren’t desperate … not right today.”

“Good.” She dismissed the subject as dealt with. She pulled out the chair opposite his desk and sat down. “Squeaky, I need your advice, possibly your help.”

He squinted at her suspiciously. “There ain’t nothing to spare,” he said immediately.

“I don’t want money,” she replied, keeping her patience with difficulty. “I think there might be some fraud going on in a local church … at least, I hope there is.”

His straggly eyebrows shot up. “You what?”

“Fraud,” she replied, realizing she had not phrased it in the clearest way. “I suspect and hope it is fraud. I want to find out, and then I want to do something about it.” She explained what she knew of the victim, mentioning no names, and the little she had discovered on her own visit to the church.

“Leave it alone,” Squeaky said, almost before she had finished.

That was always his first reaction, so, as usual, she ignored it. She went on to describe Abel Taft and Robertson Drew, all the time watching Squeaky’s face crease up with greater and greater distaste. Finally, she mentioned that the victim she was concerned about was Josephine Raleigh’s father. She had kept that piece of information until last intentionally, knowing it would have the most effect. She knew Squeaky could be trusted to keep his mouth shut about it.

Squeaky glared at her balefully, quite aware that he had been manipulated. He liked Josephine, and Hester knew it.

“I don’t know what you think I’m going to do!” he said indignantly. “I ain’t going to church. It’s against my beliefs.”

“I think this particular church goes against my beliefs too,” Hester agreed. “Can’t you find a way to take a bit of a look at their accounting?”

“Their books in’t going to have ‘cheat’ written across them,” he pointed out.

“If they did, then I wouldn’t need you,” she returned. “I’m quite good at reading words; it’s figures I find rather more difficult, especially when it’s all in accounting ledgers and looks perfectly honest. It will need someone cleverer than they are to catch them.”

He grunted. He would never admit that he was flattered by her trust, but he was. “I’ll try to take a look at it,” he said grudgingly. “If I can get a hold of the books somehow, that is. Can’t promise it’ll do any good.”

She gave him a warm smile. “Thank you. You shouldn’t find it difficult to gain access to the books. After all, it is a charity. You’ll think of a way. I would dearly like to see Mr. Raleigh get some of his money back. And I dislike admitting it, but I would also very much like to see Abel Taft somewhat curtailed in his actions. They are rather despicable.”

Squeaky looked at her steadily for a couple of long seconds, then he smiled back, showing his crooked, snaggled teeth.

She knew in that moment that if Abel Taft could be caught, Squeaky would do it.

A few days later, Hester sat in Squeaky Robinson’s office. Papers were spread out across the desk, covering it completely. Squeaky had a fresh cravat around his neck, perfectly tied, and he looked remarkably satisfied with himself.

“It’s all very clever,” he said, his fingers touching the top sheet. “But I got ’em! It’s all there, if you know where to look. ‘Brothers of the Poor,’ indeed!” He assumed an expression of profound disgust. “Very bad. Thieving from the rich is one thing, but gulling the poor like this, an’ in the name of religion, that’s low.”

“You’re quite sure?” Hester knew the necessity of being exact in court. She still felt a touch of ice when she remembered past times, one in particular, when she had been so certain of a man’s crime that she had not been sufficiently diligent in the proof, and Oliver Rathbone had caught her out on the witness stand. The result had been humiliating, and disastrous. Her carelessness-even hubris-had lost the case and the man had gone free. They had got him in the end, but not before other lives had been lost, very nearly including Scuff’s.

“Of course I’m sure!” Squeaky replied, his ragged eyebrows raised so high they nearly disappeared into his hair. “Suddenly you don’t trust me?”

Hester kept her temper well under control. “I’ve made enough mistakes in taking things for granted before. I won’t let it happen again,” she replied.

He knew immediately what she was referring to. He let his breath out in a sigh. “Right. Yeah, I’m sure. But it don’t matter anyway, since the police and the lawyers are the ones adding it all up. You just give ’em these. If they look careful, it’ll prove there’s bin thieving.”

“I will,” she said, starting to put the papers together. “Thank you.”

He snatched them from her and shuffled them into a pack, almost as easily as if they had been cards.

“You’re very welcome.” He glared at her, then all of a sudden he smiled, like a wolf. “You go get ’em. Hang ’em as high as their own church tower.”

“It’s not a hanging offense,” she corrected him.

“Well, it should be,” he said flatly. “On second thoughts, a good stiff ten years in the Coldbath Fields’d be worse. I’ll be happy with that. You just take it to the police!”