Page 15 of Corpse in the Canal

“Time to go,” David murmured, as two more burly men approached them across the sticky floor.

Solomon stood up. “When did you last see Harvey?”

“Days ago. Monday? What’s it to you?”

“Nothing,” David assured the man. “Except we all need to find him.”

And better Solomon and David than this angry thug.

It was a story they encountered a couple of times. Someone at the next den claimed to have won some money from Percy on Wednesday night and said he went off with a girl.

“What girl?” Solomon pounced.

“Ellie May.”

“Where will I find Ellie May?”

“On her back,” said the informant, chortling, “all being well with her.”

Solomon pushed a coin across the table and the man gazed at it hungrily.

“No particular place,” he said at last. “But you might see her around the streets here.”

Solomon left him the coin and he and David departed. Footsteps followed them up the dingy alley, causing Solomon’s neck to prickle.

“Looking for someone, handsome?” asked a thin woman barely wearing a torn scarlet dress.

Solomon paused, and so did the footsteps. David looked behind them while Solomon addressed the girl.

“Looking for Ellie May.”

“I’m just as good.”

Solomon extracted another coin from his pocket and stepped closer. “Ellie May.”

His coin vanished, though where the girl put it was anyone’s guess. “Try next on the left, two doors up. She ain’t got lodgings. There’s two of you,” she pointed out hopefully.

“We stick together,” David said gravely.

They discovered Ellie May shaking out her meager skirts while a shadow faded into the increasingly misty night.

“Evening, kind sirs,” she said with entirely false welcome. She was stick thin, her face pinched, her features sharp, and her eyes old and tired. “You got to pay twice, you know, even if you’re quick.”

“We’ll be very quick,” Solomon assured her. “We understand you left Orrie’s Den on Wednesday with a young gentleman called Harvey.”

“Was that his name, stingy bastard? I watched him win five guineas and he paid me bloody twopence. Twopence! I let him stay the night and all. Broke my own rules ’cause he’s a nob, but he ain’t no gentleman.”

Solomon pounced. “When did he leave you?”

“Next morning. Ten or eleven, maybe.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“He didn’t say. Just left his measly twopence and buggered off. I hope he heard my boot hit the door after him. Here, you’d better get out that way,” she added, jerking her head to the far end of her alleyway. “Someone’s followed you up here, and it ain’t for my beautiful eyes.”

Either way, they were taking a chance. The girl’s pimp or other friends could easily be lying in wait to rob them, farther up the alley. But Solomon elected to take her advice, though all his senses screamed of danger. David walked silently at his side.

Behind them, the girl said, “Looking for me, love?”