“A moment, if you please, Mrs. Birch,” Leonidas said. He stepped forward into the house with her, and I heard them speak in hushed tones for a moment. Once I heard her say missing! in a loud and gleeful voice, but I could make no more of it.
When they emerged, Leonidas turned to me and announced in a businesslike manner that Mrs. Birch would be happy to tell all in exchange for one British shilling.
“I have no money, so you pay her, Leonidas. Be so good.”
He reached into his coat, but the woman stopped him. “Is he going to pay you back?”
“Very likely not.”
“Don’t forget I’ve reformed,” I said.
“Very likely not,” Leonidas said again.
“Then don’t pay me nothing,” she said. “I don’t want to take no money from you.”
I looked at Leonidas. “Why are people so nice to you?”
“Because I am kind to them,” he said.
“Fascinating,” I muttered, and it was. To the woman I said, “Now that we’ve worked out these pesky money matters, can you tell me what I wish to know?”
She nodded. “Pearson would use one of the rooms in the house. He discounted my rent on account of me not being able to rent it out myself. He kept it for a delicate kind of business, and though I didn’t much care for it happening under my own roof, I was in no position to object, if you take my meaning.”
“He brought a woman here?” I asked. “He strayed from his marriage vows?”
She laughed. “He invented whole new ways to stray from his marriage vows. He only came here with one girl; Emily Fiddler’s her name. I told the Irishman too, ’cause he come looking for Pearson. I tell him that Pearson don’t live here, don’t even stay here, he just uses the room for his special girl.”
“And what is so special about this Emily Fiddler?”
A distressed sort of grin crossed her face. “You’d have to meet her to understand.”
S he directed us to a house not far away on German Street. It was a better sort of place than that from which we’d come, in superior repair, not so reeking of desperation and decay. Seeing me look upon it, Leonidas said, “I suppose Pearson never owned this one.”
We knocked upon the door, and the serving woman, upon hearing our request, sent me (without Leonidas, who was sent to the kitchen) to a sitting room, where I was met by a not unattractive woman in her early thirties. She had dark hair, large emerald eyes, and lips of unusual redness against pale skin. She was a bit plump perhaps, and her nose a bit too thin, but she must have been spectacular ten years earlier.
“I am looking for Miss Fiddler.”
“I am she,” the woman said, with the charming tone of a lady who knows her business. “Have you been referred to me?”
“As it happens, we have,” I said.
“Then by all means let us talk business. Let me call for tea.”
There was something in her tone, something jaded and eager, like the crier at a traveling show, that put me on my caution. The room, which had seemed perfectly charming to me, now took on a less agreeable cast. The furnishings, which were neat, were also quite old, and not in the best repair: chipped wood, tattered upholstery, fringed pillows. The windows were covered with gaudy red curtains, laced with gold chintz. I had the strangest feeling that we were children playing at being adults.
“Miss Fiddler,” I began, “I have just come from a Mrs. Birch, who formerly rented her home from a Mr. Jacob Pearson. I am told you know him.”
She smiled, quite lasciviously, I thought. “Of course. I know him well. He is always a good man with whom to do business.”
“Is that so?” I asked.
“And would you care to do business as well?” she asked.
Were I less used to female charms, I would most certainly have blushed, so saucy was her tone. “I will certainly discuss business with you.”
“I speak for her when it comes to matters of money, but in the end I cannot influence her when it comes to preference. You understand me. You are a handsome man, Mr. Saunders, but you are also bruised in your face, and that may frighten her. In the end, the arrangement must please her, or there can be no business at all. I must also tell you that in order to indemnify all parties, money may be exchanged in my house, but the business, shall we say, must be transacted elsewhere. You must have somewhere to take her.”
A lesser man would have inquired what, precisely, the deuce she was talking about, but I had ever thought it best to let these things unfold upon their own terms. “May I meet her?”
“Of course.”
She rang a bell.
I had already surmised that while this lady might have been a Miss Fiddler, she was not the Miss Fiddler with whom Pearson had a relationship. My guess was that this lady was a relative-an older sister or cousin or aunt-who functioned as the younger woman’s bawd.
In a moment a pretty young girl entered the room, looking like a younger version of our hostess. The girl had the same dark hair, the same eyes the color of brilliant summer grass, the same red lips and snowy skin, the same too-narrow nose. She, like the older lady, was a bit inclined to plumpness, but she wore it well, for her weight was well located in precisely the places a man likes a woman to accumulate herself. She wore a simple white gown, low cut to expose her large breasts. She curtsied, saying nothing, gazing upon nothing with a kind of amusement, as though nothing were a perpetual show staged for her entertainment.
I rose and bowed. “You must be Emily. May I ask you some questions?”
She smiled but said nothing. There was nothing rude or defiant in her silence, rather a kind of uncomplicated absence. The serving girl now wheeled in the tea things, and the cart was rickety and squeaked and rattled, producing an atmosphere at once comic and ominous.
“May I ask you some questions about Mr. Jacob Pearson?” I asked the girl.
She curtsied again, but the older woman shifted in her seat as though she too was uncomfortable. She sent her serving girl away with a flick of her hand. To me she said, “Did Mr. Pearson tell you much about Emily?”
“He only spoke of her great beauty,” I said quickly, “and he did not exaggerate.”
“You are a man of taste, sir. You may direct your questions to me.”
The girl now said something that sounded very much like Peah-soh. Her voice was deeper than I would have anticipated, and the sound was low and nasal, as sad and dull as a cow’s mournful lowing.
I turned to her. “I beg your pardon.”
Her face opened into a wide grin. “Peah-soh,” she keened.
All at once it was clear to me, and I cursed myself for a fool for not seeing it sooner. “My God. Is the girl a simpleton?”
Miss Fiddler did not respond to this vehemence. “I thought you knew. Yes, she was born that way, and when her parents died last year and left her in my care, I knew not what to do with her. But as you can see, she is very pretty, and she does not object to her duties.” She leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “She rather relishes it. You are not going to be one of those men to lecture me, are you?”
There was a depth of inhumanity here that even I found too diabolical to contemplate, but this was not the time for useless lectures. I was getting close to learning something, and along the way I was both elated and horrified to discover that Cynthia’s husband was more of a beast than I could have imagined.
To the elder lady, I said, “I am not one to judge. One man’s monstrosity is another man’s diversion. For my part, Miss Fiddler, I would delight in bedding an idiot-vastly amusing and all that-but that is not why I’ve come. It is on government business, and I do hope that when I come to report my findings to the President and his advisors I have only information to tell him, not the nature of the people who could not help us. You understand me, I think.”