William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

teapot and poured a second mug. “Toast?”
    He nodded.
    “Jam?” she offered.
    His eyes went to the table. His face relaxed in a rueful smile. “You got black currant!” he noticed, his voice soft.
    “You’d like some?” It was a rhetorical question. The answer was obvious. Margaret was still asleep, and making the toast would give Hester a little more time to think, so she was happy to do it.
    She came back to the table with two slices, and buttered one for herself and one for him, then pushed the jam over to him. He took a liberal spoonful, put it on the toast and ate it with evident appreciation.
    “You’ad someone,” he said after several moments, looking at her almost with apology.
    “I had three,” she replied. “At about a quarter to one, or about then. One later, three o’clock or so, and another an hour after that.”
    “All in fights?”
    “Looked like it. I didn’t ask. I never do. Why?”
    Hester waited, watching him. There were hollows under his eyes as if he had lost too many nights’ sleep, and there was dust and what looked like blood on his sleeves. When she looked further, there was more on the legs of his trousers. His hand, holding the mug, was scratched, and one fingernail was torn. It should have been painful, but he seemed unaware of it. She was touched by both pity and a cold air of fear. “Why did you come?” she asked aloud.
    He put down the mug. “There’s been a murder,” he replied. “In Abel Smith’s brothel over in Leather Lane.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said automatically. Whoever it was, such a thing was sad, the waste of two lives, a grief to even more. But murders were not unheard of in an area like this, or dozens of others in London much the same. Narrow alleys and squares lay a few yards behind teeming streets, but it was a different world of pawnbrokers, brothels, sweatshops, and crowded tenements smelling of middens and rotting timber. Prostitution was a dangerous occupation, primarily because of the risk of disease and, if you lived long enough, starvation when you became too old to practice—at thirty-five or forty.
    “Why did you come here?” Hester asked. “Was somebody else attacked as well?”
    He looked at her, his eyes narrow, his lips pulled tight. It was an expression of understanding and misery, not contempt. “Dead person wasn’t a woman,” he explained. “Wouldn’t expect you to be able to ’elp me if it was. Although sometimes they fight each other, but not to kill, far as I know. Never seen it, anyway.”
    “A man?” She was surprised. “You think a pimp killed him? What happened? Someone drunk, do you suppose?”
    He sipped his tea again, letting the hot liquid ease his throat. “Don’t know. Abel swears it in’t anything to do with ’is girls. . . .”
    “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” She dismissed the idea without even weighing it.
    Hart would not let it go so quickly. “Thing is, Mrs. Monk, the dead man was a toff . . . I mean a real toff. You should ’ave seen ’is clothes. I know quality. An’ clean. ’Is ’ands were clean too, nails an’ all. An’ smooth.”
    “Do you know who he was?”
    He shook his head. “No. Someone pinched ’is money an’ calling cards, if ’e’ad any. But someone’ll miss’im. We’ll find out.”
    “Even men like that have been known to use prostitutes,” she said reasonably.
    “Yeh, but not Abel Smith’s sort,” he replied. “Not that that’s what matters,” he added quickly. “Thing is, a man like that gets murdered an’ we’ll be expected to get whoever did it in double quick time, an’ there’ll still be a lot o’ shouting an’ wailing to clean up the area, get rid o’ prostitution and make the streets safe for decent people, like.” He said this with ineffable contempt—not a sneer of the lips or raising of his voice, just a soft, immeasurable disgust.
    “Presumably if he’d stayed at home with his wife, he’d still be alive,” Hester responded sourly. “But I can’t help you. Why do you think a woman was hurt and could know something about it? Or that she’d dare tell you if she did?”
    “You thinking ’er pimp did it?” He raised his eyebrows.
    “Aren’t you?” she countered. “Why would a woman kill him? And how? Was he stabbed? I don’t know any women who carry knives or who attack their clients. Fingernails or teeth are about the worst I’ve heard of.”
    “ ’Eard of?” he questioned.
    She smiled with a slight downward