Morning light revealed a Bell Lane that looked little different from a thousand other small, unfashionable London streets. Heavy drays rumbled down its narrow length with barrels from the brewery, and it was otherwise crowded with ragged but apparently innocent commerce. There were even the usual milkmaids in their white pinafores and black taffeta bonnets, pails dangling from the yokes across their shoulders. From a particularly pretty girl Henry Morton bought a cup of milk and flirted for a few pleasant moments, finding that, despite the neighbourhood, she was the very pattern of modesty.
The Otter's door stood open, airing, and he stopped a moment to inspect its strong and polished Bramah lock. Aside from it, there was no bar or other fastening.
When he went down he found the barroom deserted except for an old crone wiping the tables. Constellations of dust motes hung in the beams of light that angled from two basement windows high in the wall.
“This house be closed, yer worship,” said the old woman in a toothless mumble.
Morton looked around thoughtfully. He wondered what secrets the rest of the place might hold. What would he find if he went up those stairs behind the bar? But even for a Runner, armed only with a clasp-knife and his baton, it might be ill-advised to mount them alone and unannounced, especially when no one at Bow Street knew he was here. His could be the next corpse found floating facedown in the Thames.
But then, even as he pondered, a small figure came tripping unconcernedly down that same staircase. The little serving-wench he'd seen before: Lucy.
She stopped when she reached the bottom, and for a moment they regarded each other. Then Morton smiled at her, and was rewarded with a tiny, grimacing kind of half-smile in return. She looked nervous, but also curious, and Morton was struck again by the air of extraordinary intelligence that seemed to play over her sharp little features.
He turned and sat down on one of the benches along the wall, in the light. Continuing to smile at her, he patted the bench beside him with his hand, and invited her with a motion of his head to join him. After a moment's hesitation, and a wary glance at the old woman, she came.
She sat down a little farther from him than he had indicated, and did not look at him. The sickened thought passed through Henry Morton's mind that she had probably obeyed such a summons from other gentlemen many times before, and for other purposes. Yet, yet, that look almost of trust she had given him perhaps meant that she understood he did not want what other men had wanted. And she probably knew that men rarely came to the Otter for carnal pleasures at this hour of the day. The crone stood hesitating, motionless, regarding them both suspiciously, apparently trying to decide whether to object again, or to go and alert someone.
Morton casually fished a shilling from an inside pocket and tossed it in her direction.
“Do thy cleaning, Mother,” he told her. “The kinchin and I will only work our jaws a space.”
Muttering something unintelligible, the old woman bent for the coin and did as she was bidden. Morton turned back to the little girl.
“Thou art called Lucy?” he asked in as friendly a tone as he could command, and once more smiled.
She nodded, still not looking at him, and rocked a little on the bench, tapping her heels against the wall behind her. She was dressed as she had been before, in shapeless dirty rags, but in this better light Morton could see them to be scraps of cast-off adult clothing, a bit of ruffle visible here, an odd little length of pleated hem there. She seemed to have tidied her hair slightly this time.
“How old art thou, Lucy?”
He hardly expected any real answer, but she screwed up her face in a considering expression.
“My mamma told Joshua I was born at Michaelmas,” she replied, in a high, clear voice, like a bird's, “in the year before the year when Admiral Nelson was shot by the French. Joshua told me that this happened a decade ago, which is a word meaning ten years. So, I will say that I am going on to be eleven years and a half a year old, but I cannot tell it for certain, because neither Joshua nor my mamma are entirely to be trusted. Although for different reasons. I have been here at this house for a year and seven months: This is a true fact that I know, as I have recorded it myself.”
Morton blinked at this extraordinary speech.
“You work it out very well!” he remarked.
Now she looked at him and smiled a quick, proud smile, before resuming her former attitude.
“Does your… mamma come here to see you?”
“Oh, no. Joshua gave her thirty shillings for me, but she had to promise not to come back. And she promised it.”
Morton shuddered and tried to think what else he could ask her that might serve his purposes. He did not want to know anything more about her life. He wished he didn't know as much as he suddenly did.
But before he could, she looked up at him and asked her own question.
“What happened to your face?”
His hand went up automatically to the painful red streak that disfigured his features.
“A man mistook me for a horse,” he ruefully told her.
“He mistook you for a horse!” cried Lucy with a sudden silvery peal of delight. “How could he be so daft!” And she laughed again, immoderately, as if Morton's answer had appealed to a deep enthusiasm for the absurd. The old woman peered over at them and scowled bitterly.
Morton joined the girl's laughter.
“Now, Lucy, can you tell me something?”
“You don't look like a horse!”
“No. Now, can you remember something for me? Do you remember seeing a man last week, a gentleman it was, dressed in dark clothes and a high white neck-cloth? You might have been taking him drinks. Maybe many drinks.”
But now the mood abruptly changed. The old woman was staring very hard, and Lucy, glancing anxiously at her, suddenly blanched with an expression of pure fear. She said nothing.
Morton saw, and quickly retreated. He'd not do this little soul any further harm, whatever the needs of his investigation.
“Ah, well, no matter. I'm sure there were many gentlemen. Who could tell them all apart?” He reached for his hat, which he had set down on the bench beside him. But in the moment he was turned away he felt a light motion at his side, as a quick hand pulled the volume he had left in his coat deftly from its pocket.
He turned in surprise, then could not but smile at the look of helpless fascination with which the little thief was gazing at the treasure her fingers had been unable to resist. She cradled it in her lap like some precious offering before an altar. His surprise turned to astonishment, however, when she delicately opened it to the title page.
“LORD … BY-RON … HEBREW … MEL … O … DIES,” she pronounced slowly and carefully. Then looked up at him, wide-eyed. “What is that?”
“Poems,” he murmured. “You can read this, Lucy?”
“I am learning,” she whispered, confidentially. “I began with my mamma. Now Joshua shows me sometimes, and sometimes the gentlemen do.” This suggested a side of both Joshua and “the gentlemen” Morton would hardly have credited. But then, there was something particularly appealing and determined about the gaze in this child's eyes. “I am collecting things,” she added. “Papers with writing on them, so I can practise.”
“This is extraordinary,” he murmured appreciatively.
“But I don't have…” she went on, hesitant but daring, “I've never had…a whole book.” The pure, passionate need with which she said it, the naked childish greed, made Henry Morton shake his head.
“Take it, Lucy. Take it. It's yours.”
Morton wondered if he had ever in his life seen true happiness. It startled him. Was there really anything in the world to warrant such ecstasy? He would not have believed it possible.
In an instant she was gone with her prize, bounding lightly up the steps into whatever terrible world lay above, joy in the very spring of her limbs. The old crone bent darkly muttering to her task again and Henry Morton was left by himself, fighting back inexplicable tears.