“Better’n some people think.”
He chuckled at that. “How long have you been up here?”
“A long time, but I ain’t sure just how long.”
“Well, take a guess at it, why don’t you?”
“It was right after I talked to you about. . about Maggie. That’s when I left London and come here-near a month ago.”
“But you didn’t tell anybody where you’d gone. If we’d found Maggie, how could we let you know?”
“Well, I knew you wouldn’t find her, because she got adopted.”
The serving woman came then with what I had ordered. She insisted on immediate payment, an interruption in the flow of the interrogation that could cost us dear. But at last she accepted payment and was away. Alice drank greedily from the glass of gin, and Mr. Patley judged her ready to begin again.
“Who told you about this practice of adopting, Alice?” he asked.
“Well, first it was Katy next door, and then it was Walter.”
“Walter? Who’s he?”
“He was the one took my Maggie away to the good couple who couldn’t have a child all by themselves. Never did find out his last name. But I told Maggie all about how her new family would love her and have money enough to take good care of her, like I never could. And so when Walter took her away she didn’t make no fuss nor nothin’. Just kissed me goodbye and waved.”
“Did Walter give you the name of this couple he took Maggie to?”
“No, not hardly. He said it had to be a secret because if it weren’t, sometime when I got to missin’ her bad, I might go and try to steal her back. Oh, and I might, because even now I get to missing her so bad I can’t hardly stand it.” There she paused and looked up winningly at Mr. Patley. “Could I have another gin?”
He glanced over at me, and I, feeling that the interrogation had gone well thus far with a glass of gin to loosen her tongue, decided that a second glass might make it go even better. I signaled for another gin to the serving woman who pulled a sour face but passed it on to the man behind the bar. It was most quickly forthcoming. Alice took it from the serving woman with polite thanks and treated herself to a hasty sip. Then, with a smile, she returned her attention to the constable.
“There is only a couple more questions we got to ask you,” said he to her. “You’re doin’ fine so far, Alice.”
She smiled foolishly at that. “All the right answers?”
“No mistakes yet. I’d like you to tell me, though, just how it was you came into all that money?”
“All what money?”
“Well you came up here from London on the mail coach, didn’t you?”
“Certain’y. It was the onliest way I could get here, ’cept walk.” She remained silent for a moment, then said playfully, “Oh, that money!”
“Yes, Alice, that money.”
“Well,” said she, “I never asked for a penny-truly I never. But the day that Walter came for Maggie he brought me a proper bag of coins and said that the couple wanted me to have this money, ’cause they were so grateful. I never did get a proper count on it in pounds and pence, but it’s a lot, and it’s lasted me a long time. Course I knew where I’d go just as soon as ever I got that much money in hand.”
“And where was that?”
“Why, right here-right in Newmarket-to see my sweetheart, Stephen. He’s been my sweetheart for years and years.”
“Did you two write letters to each other? Did he invite you to come?”
“Stephen? Oh no, he didn’t know where I was, and I couldn’t write to tell him, because I never had any learning. But I just came to him, and we picked up just where we left off. It was beautiful. Course he’s angry-now, maybe a mite jealous, because I came down here to see you two.” She said nothing more for a moment, but thrust out her lower lip in a pout. “When are you two going to give me that message from Maggie I been waiting to hear?”
“In a while, Alice. It won’t be long,” said the constable. “Just one more question.”
“All right, what is it?”
“Whose idea was it to report Maggie as missing? Was it yours?”
“Oh no, nothing of the kind. Katy Tiddle thought it up. It was all her idea. She said it would keep people from asking a lot of questions when they noticed that Maggie was gone. I could just say she was stolen and I’d reported it to the constable.”
She waited, frowning. “Well,” said she, “I answered your last question. Ain’t I goin’ to hear now what Maggie has to say?”
Mr. Patley looked at me with great uncertainty. Clearly, he wished me now to assume the burden.
“Alice,” said I, “we didn’t say we had a message from Maggie. We said we had a message about her.”
“Well, all right, what’s the message about her then?”
The difficulty I was having putting the information that I had into words must have shown in my face. No doubt I looked terribly distressed, for that was indeed how I felt.
She read my face. For, of a sudden, the expression upon her own altered to one of alarm, then went beyond that to horror, utter horror.
“Oh, dear God in heaven,” said she, “Maggie’s dead, ain’t she?”
“I fear it’s true, Alice. You were deceived by Katy Tiddle and Walter.”
“What do you mean? Say it!”
“Uh. . well, it’s. .” I temporized, glancing at Mr. Patley and finding no help there, unable to find the right words, unwilling to say it plain. I sighed, then plunged on: “Alice, there was no nice couple waiting for Walter to deliver your daughter to them. Walter may have kept Maggie for his own use, or sold her on to someone quite rich. We think-I think-that the latter is the way of it.”
“Can you help us find Walter? He made a whore of her, Alice,” said the constable. “If he delivered her to someone else, then he can tell us who, so we can get to that someone else.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know she’s really dead? Maybe this is just another trick to get me back to London.”
“A waterman pulled her body out of the Thames. I took it to the doctor who pronounced her dead, and then your brother had her buried in the churchyard at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden.”
“My brother? Deuteronomy?”
“That’s right. He’s right here in Newmarket. He’ll tell you everything we said is true.”
“No, keep him out of it. He’s always tellin’ me what to do.”
Having heard all that we had to say, she sat quietly, as if devising a plan of action. Neither Patley nor I spoke. We simply waited. I know not quite what we expected from her, yet certainly not what she gave us; in fact, she quite astounded us.
She began to scream.
I know not quite how to describe her cries, for there was naught of surprise nor fear in them. Call them, rather, screams of outrage: protests against the cruelty of fortune, the unfairness of fate.
In any case, they had an immediate and electrifying effect upon all there in the tap-room. Those at the tables and bar-thank God the place was not then greatly crowded-turned immediately, open-mouthed in shocked surprise. The innkeeper and the serving woman came running. And as for Patley and me, we had leapt to our feet and were making helpless gestures with our hands. Yet what more could we do?
“You must get her out of here!” shouted the serving woman at a volume that seemed to match that of the screams.
“Yes, but how?”
“I don’t care how you do it. Just do it!”
There was a rhythm to Alice’s cries, and they were of a predictable duration, so that as she halted to take a breath, Mr. Patley, a man of fair proportions, was able to clap a hand over her mouth and pull her to her feet.
He quick-marched her out. There was little for me to do but run ahead and get from the innkeeper the location of the magistrate’s court. This was a situation that called for desperate measures.
“I knew you was bringin’ trouble the moment you came through that door,” the serving woman shouted after us.