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“If you’re sick, you’re out of a job,” Sarah agreed. “And Mellie knew it well enough to take herself to her room with a bottle when her time was up.”

“Is tha’ what happened, then?” Nell asked, enough of a question in her voice to make the other two women look at each other uneasily.

“That’s what we was told,” Sarah said. “And around here you both do as you’re told and believe what you’re told.”

“Or at least put on a good show of it,” Birdie said, pitching her cigarette into the street below. “But Teekler’s downstairs balancing the books and there ain’t no one to hear what I say but the robins and you two loons.”

Sarah laughed again, shaking her head at her friend’s cleverness.

“So you don’t think she drank herself to death?” Nell pressed.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that exactly,” Birdie said. “She wouldn’t be the first of us to make her way out, but Mellie wasn’t the type. And besides, she wasn’t entirely sure that it was the pox. Women in our line of work can get all kinds of things go wrong down there without it necessarily being the end of the line. She had a bit of money saved up and told me she was having a man come and take a look at her.”

Grace’s fingers tightened on her slate, the brittle edges cutting into her fingers.

“He must not’ve had good news for her,” Sarah said.

Birdie shrugged. “I can’t say for sure. All’s I know is that’s the last thing she said to me after Teekler took her off of shift.”

“So she wasn’t seeing any customers?” Nell asked.

“No,” Birdie said. “Once you’ve got a spot on you you’re not a working girl no more. Not here, anyway. Teekler even made her pay for her room the last few days she was here without earning money, as if she thinks she’s running a hotel or some kind of rot.” Birdie spit over the side of the railing. “The last bit of her money went to that doctor man, trying to prove she wasn’t going to spread the pox to every last john who paid good money for a go at her.”

“Do you know who the doctor was?” Nell asked, responding to the pressure on her elbow from Grace’s fingers.

Birdie looked at Sarah, who shook her head. “No. She would’ve brought him up the back stairs just like you are here, quiet like. Teekler don’t allow us to have a man here who she isn’t getting money from.”

“Why not go see him in his office, then?”

Grace silently thanked her friend for being so quick.

“Maybe the doctor don’t like it being known he treats whores, thinking it might hurt his more respectable business,” Sarah said.

“Or maybe he offered to take payment in something other than money,” Birdie added. “Some men don’t mind taking their chances, if they’re desperate enough.”

A shout from downstairs made all four women jump. “You’d best be going,” Sarah said, urging them toward the stairs. “I don’t know that Teekler would care for us talking to two girls from the street, but it’s hard to say and life’s tough enough as it is.”

Nell and Grace picked their way down the steps as Grace scratched at her slate, turning to face the prostitutes before they went back inside. Grace held it high so that they could see her two words, written large.

BE CAREFUL

“So me and Grace, we think it was some doctor that done ol’ Mellie Jacobs in,” Nell said, leaning closer to Lizzie to whisper. The three girls sprawled on Grace’s bed, one lantern shared conspiratorially between them, burning low.

Lizzie’s blue eyes were wide. “Is this true?”

Grace nodded, slate set aside when she was among friends.

“But why would he do such a thing? Mellie Jacobs never hurt a fly, I’m sure.”

“It’s easy enough to figure, isn’t it?” Nell said. “’E’s got a burning but the candle wax has gone soft.”

“Nell!” Lizzie objected.

“What? Oh, ’ere’s another one. ’E’d like to start a fire, but the wick won’t stand.”

“I’ll go back to my room, I will,” Lizzie said. “I’m not disobeying Janey just to listen to you make lewd remarks.”

Nell laughed. “I’m bein’ lewd, sure, but tha’ don’t make me wrong.”