“Didn’t I? ’Course I did. Didn’t I see the two of them coming up Green Dragon Alley whilst I was coming in from the outhouse? Course I did. What’s a poor widow to do ’cept spy on her neighbors?”
“So you saw Elizabeth with someone else, did you?”
“Didn’t I just say so?”
“Well, was that someone else male or female?”
“Oh, female-meaning girl, I suppose-one just like her, anyways. I swear, they looked enough alike to be sisters-or cousins, at least. They come prancing up the alley, giggling and carrying on like they were having the time of their young lives.”
“This other girl, the one with Elizabeth, she couldn’t have been a daughter of the Chesleys’, could she?”
She dismissed the notion out of hand. “Oh no,” said she. “They ain’t got but two children, both of them grown-up men. Live up around Lichfield, somewheres like that.”
“Just one more question,” said I, quite excited to have learned what I had. “Their departure-the two girls-when was it?”
She shrugged. “I ain’t got a proper clock here, but I would say that it was gettin’ on toward dark. Not dark yet, understand, but it would have been in another hour.”
“And the two girls left together?”
“Indeed they did, for I had this very window open, and I watched it all, right from where I’m standin’ now.”
I was by that time quite eager to get back to Bow Street and tell Sir John what I had learned, yet I knew that since I had been sent to Wapping to interview the uncle and aunt, I had better make a greater effort to do so than I had thus far done. Thus, I made ready to depart from my informant.
“Could you tell me your name, madam?”
“Hetty Duncan,” said she. “But I must say I’m proper let down by that smile of yours. Not much to it, if you ask me. As you said yourself, you could do better. And you seemed properly carried away by what I told you about Elizabeth’s little friend.”
“Not another word,” said I, and, so saying, I grasped her grizzled head and planted a buss square upon her lips.
She giggled at that, and I grinned the widest grin ever. “There it is,” said she. “That’s the smile I was hoping to win from you.”
I waved and ran for the brewery. I knocked loud upon the door, as was necessary, for there was a great deal of competing noise from beyond it. ’Twas not long before I heard the lock turn and the door swung open; a man, sweating and disheveled, stood and asked my business.
“I wish to speak to Mr. George Chesley,” said I.
“Better be important. He’s the brewmaster here.”
“Tell him then ’tis to do with his niece, and I am come from the Bow Street Court to ask him a few questions.”
“I’ll tell him that,” said he and slammed the door and turned the lock.
I waited a proper length of time-and then some. At last, I heard heavy footsteps on the other side-again the lock-and the door came open. The man revealed seemed quite as wide as he was tall, though not as fat as that might suggest. He was well into his sixth decade, and what I saw of the hair beneath his hat told me that there was near as much gray as dark in it. His face was lined, yet in such a way that said he wore a smile a fair part of the day.
“You the lad from the Bow Street Court?” he asked.
I acknowledged that this was so.
“I’ve no doubt this is about the disappearance of our niece,” said he, closing the door behind him. “What have you to ask?”
I then put to him a series of routine questions that had to do with time of arrival and departure, and that sort of thing. They were intended to put him at his ease. He answered them readily enough but hesitated a bit when I put to him the question which I had been leading up to.
“Mr. Chesley,” said I, “having spoken with your neighbor Hetty Duncan, I learned that there were two guests at your home, yet as it was reported to us by Elizabeth’s mother, Jenny Hooker, her daughter was alone in her visit to you. Now, which am I to believe? Your neighbor, or Mrs. Hooker?”
“Well,” said he-and there he stopped for a considerable time, less than a minute, no doubt, but such an interruption can seem considerable whilst one is waiting for an answer.
“Well,” he repeated. “It’s Hetty has it right,” said he at last. “It was my wife was the cause of it all. You see, Jenny’s her sister, though you’d never know it to look at them. For one thing, Mary, my wife, was the oldest in the family and Jenny the youngest. There was three brothers came betwixt oldest and youngest. Even so, the two of them were pretty close. And when Mary and me got married, there wasn’t anything going to stand in Jenny’s way on her way to the altar. She wasn’t but sixteen or so, and Mary was near ten years older, but once Jenny got asked that was it-all she needed. She was just at that age, you know. The babies just kept comin’. Jenny had three sons-but only two of them lived. Then, when she had Elizabeth, her husband got the idea of going up to London. We’d been here a good five years or more by then. People in London liked the taste of that bitter ale we had up in Lichfield, so they just up and hired me and brought me down to London. My two boys stayed up in Lichfield, though.
“Now, this fellow Jenny married-Thomas Hooker was his name-he was a strange sort. Back in Lichfield he ran a stable for a man who owned two of them. But Tom was one of the pious sort, who thought he was better than everybody else just because he prayed harder than they did. He was sure he was better than me because I was involved in the making of ‘the devil’s own concoction’-which of course was ale-according to him. To tell the truth, I’ve no way of proving this, but still I’ve always suspected that he got it in his head to come to London just because I come down here-wanted to prove that because he was one of the Lord’s own he could make a greater success than an old sinner like me. So he just up and moved the whole family down here without having even the prospect of a job-said he put his trust in the Lord. Well, the Lord kind of let him down, because after he found out there weren’t any jobs in the line he had worked all his life. So what did he do? He came to me and asked for work. And what did I do? I hired him. My wife wouldn’t have it any other way.”
There he paused, and I, who had waited for just such an opening, intruded myself into the small space he had given me.
“But Mr. Chesley, please,” said I, “you were going to tell me about that other girl, the one who came with Elizabeth Hooker.”
“Oh, I’m comin’ to that, but I just wanted you to know how all this fits together.”
“Well. . go on.”
“I’ll make it quick, so I will.” He took a deep breath and then continued: “He died right here, he did, he did. He was always taking chances here in the brewery-though I warned him oft to be more careful-he said he was safe in the Lord. But whilst the Lord was looking the other way, Tom Hooker drowned in a vat of ale.”
“And now to the girl Elizabeth brought along to dinner.”
“What? Oh. . oh yes.” He resumed: “Well, you can imagine what sort of girl Elizabeth was with parents like these-because Jenny was just like Tom in the way she handled her daughter. One of Elizabeth’s brothers had run away, and they lost touch. Anyway, my Mary kept contact with Jenny, even helped get her the job she’s got. But Jenny keeps such a tight hand on Elizabeth, it’s a wonder she lets her out of her sight long enough to do her work at the silversmith’s. She lives quite close to him, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” said I. “But I’d like to hear something about that girl who came with her.”
“Oh yes, that. Well, as you may have heard we invited both Jenny and Elizabeth. Jenny decided she had too much cooking to do, but since it was family and Easter, it would be all right if Elizabeth came alone in her stead. Well, Elizabeth figured that if her mother wasn’t coming, there’d be plenty to eat and room for one more at the table. She was certainly right about that.”
“But who was the girl she brought with her?” I asked.