“Oh, let’s see, it was Katherine, or Kathy, or some such name. I can’t quite recall exact, but it’s the girl she works with at the silversmith’s. A nice youngster she is. You’d like her, I’m sure. Anybody would.”
“But why did your wife not tell her sister that Katherine, or whatever her name, came here in her stead?”
“Well, I should think that would be obvious.”
“Not to me.”
“Well, because if she had done, then it would be none but Elizabeth would take the blame for it. Indeed, Elizabeth made my Mary promise she would not tell. She meant that, of course, specially to her mother, so Mary was just keeping her word, was all.”
“She shouldn’t have,” I declared, all sure and certain.
“That, indeed, is what I told her. But you will now set things straight, will you not?”
“Certainly! But I have one last question. Did the two girls leave together?”
“Did I not say so?” said he, a bit indignant.
“No, earlier you said that Elizabeth had left in good time to make it back before dark.”
“Did I? Well, Kathleen-that was her name-she left with her, just like she came.”
“Thank you, sir,” said I to him. “That is all I needed to know.” With that, I tipped my hat and set off at a run for Bow Street.
Not that I ran all the way. Nevertheless, so elated was I to have discovered a new witness, one who could potentially tell us much more about Elizabeth Hooker’s disappearance, that I must have run near a mile before slowing to a walk. I am of an age and profession today when such youthful exhibitions of energy would be considered undignified. Yet how I do miss the feeling of the cobblestones beneath my quick feet. Perhaps what I miss most of all is youth itself. I look back on those days with Sir John and Lady Fielding, and all the Bow Street Runners, as the happiest in my life. Having often discussed this with Clarissa in the preparation of these books, I know that she feels as I do in this.
’Twixt running, jog-trotting, and fast walking, I must have made it back to Bow Street in half the time it had taken me to travel on to Green Dragon Alley. Even so, when I went to tell Sir John of my discovery, I found that he had left with Clarissa for the residence of Richard Turbott, the silversmith. My informant, Mr. Fuller, said that both had been gone for over an hour.
“Did they leave an address?” I asked him. “I’ve no idea where to go.”
“Oh, now, just wait,” said he. “That girl of yours did pass something on to me for you. Now, what did I do with it?”
He began patting his pockets, searching through his clothes. He emptied one pocket, examined its contents, and then dug into another. He found nothing.
“Perhaps you laid it down somewhere? Where were you when they left?” said I, trying to be helpful.
“Well, I don’t see how that could. .” He wandered over to Mr. Marsden’s area behind the strongroom. The files were there, as well as the paperwork in which the clerk had been engaged when the coughing fit came upon him. “Well, what do you know? Here it is.” Mr. Fuller reached out and plucked a much-folded note from the top of the clerk’s writing table. “Here’s your billy-doo, Master Proctor.”
(That last bit he delivered in a fluting falsetto. He was ever making sport of my relations with Clarissa-in fact, long before there were truly any relations to be made sport of.)
On it was written an address in Chandos Street-that and nothing more. She well knew that it was likely that I should wish to follow them to the silversmith’s-and follow them I would. Was I not told that Kathleen was “the girl she works with at the silversmith’s”? Indeed I was. She would have something to tell-if Sir John had not got it all out of her by now.
“Well, I thank you, Mr. Fuller. This was indeed what I had hoped for from her.”
“Lots of exes and hearts, I’ll bet.”
“It would be dishonorable for me to tell.” And, at that, he laughed a dirty laugh indeed.
The sound of it followed me all the way to the street.
Though I was tempted, it would not do for me to have run the short distance to Chandos Street, for I knew I must keep an eye upon the far side of the street for Sir John and Clarissa.
The street was crowded, for Chandos is at the very heart of London. Its shops and stores-dressmakers, drapers, et cetera-are among the finest in the city. And all are just a single street distant from the clamor and indecency of Bedford Street. Whilst on my way, I stole a glance at the note in my hand left by Clarissa, just to make certain that the address matched the one in my head. It did. Simple enough, yet it made me marvel somewhat: I must have passed the silversmith’s shop a hundred times-no, more, far more than that-and yet I had never noticed that there was such an establishment in Chandos Street. Which proved, I suppose, that I had little interest in silver and those things made from it. Sir John was right: I must improve my powers of observation. He “sees” more with his blind eyes when he enters a room, I told myself, than I or any ordinary man could ever do. As I entered the shop, I took a quick look in the window and reassured myself that it did, at least, look familiar. I took some comfort in that.
“Yes sir, how may I serve you, sir?”
He who had spoken those words to me I took to be no older than myself-indeed, he proved to be somewhat younger. Quite rightly I supposed him to be an apprentice; he was one of three in the shop.
“If I am correct,” said I to him, “Sir John Fielding, magistrate of the Bow Street Court, is here in an investigation into the disappearance of one Elizabeth Hooker, an employee of Mr. Turbott.”
“Oh, right you are,” said he, “and with a rather nice-looking young lady, is he not?”
“Well. . yes. . I expect he would be.”
I may have grumbled a bit at that. Though I thought it instructive to learn how the rest of the world viewed her, I didn’t like it in the least to hear her described in such a manner.
“You’d like to see him then, of course.”
“I would, yes.”
“Just a moment then, till I get someone to take over the shop. I believe I know just where he is.”
He went to a corner, away from the showcase, and tugged upon a line, and far back in the shop I heard a bell jingle. It was not long till, through the curtained doorway, another lad emerged of about the same age and general description.
“Harry,” said my young fellow. “Will you keep an eye on things in front whilst I show this gentleman to Sir John? I take it that he’s still downstairs?”
“Last time I looked,” said Harry.
The first fellow then said to me: “Right this way, if you’ll just follow me.”
The moment I stepped behind the curtain I found myself in quite another world. It was the one in which the pretty little items in the window were manufactured. It was a large area, of about the size and shape of the rear of one of the booksellers and publishers’ shops-though not near so crowded with bits and pieces of the process. Against the walls on either side were candelabra and bowls and such. In the far rear, there was a kind of miniature blacksmith’s forge, round which three men had gathered and at which they concentrated with remarkable intensity. My first impulse was to rush forward to discover the object of their concentration, yet my guide through Vulcan’s domain held me back with a discreet pressure upon my arm. We stood and waited. It was not long till, at a signal from one of the three, another picked up a long-handled ladle, and a third positioned himself behind him, checking the bolts on a mold. What followed was like steps in an intricately conceived ballet. At a second signal, the movement began: the man with the ladle backed away from the forge and, holding tight to the long handle, he turned round and poured the ladle’s hot metal into the mold; the other two fell back as the ladle was replaced, and then came forward to inspect the mold. I had, without quite willing it so, been holding my breath for I know not how long. It was only then, when the action had ceased, that I resumed.