It swung open to reveal a hulking guard, his broad, plain face marked with pox scars. His narrow little eyes showed no expression. “Boy or girl?”
“Neither,” Lord Caire said smoothly. “I wish to speak to Tommy Pett.”
The man began to close the door.
Lord Caire stuck his stick in the doorway with one hand and pressed his palm flat against the door with the other. The door halted, causing the guard to look faintly surprised.
“Please,” Lord Caire said with a hard smile.
“Jacky,” a deep voice rasped from behind the guard. “Let me see our visitor.”
The guard stepped aside. Lord Caire entered immediately, pulling Temperance behind him. She peered around his shoulder.
The hall inside was a small, square space, hardly big enough for the stairs leading to the upper levels. Immediately to the right was an open door that revealed a neat sitting room beyond. In the doorway was a woman in a pink satin gown, strewn with ribbons and bows. Her head barely came past Caire’s waist, and her body was thick and squat, her brow heavy and deformed.
She flicked clever eyes at Caire. “Lord Caire. I’ve often wondered when you might visit our house.”
Lord Caire bowed. “Am I speaking to Mrs. Whiteside?”
The dwarf threw back her head and laughed in a voice as deep as a man’s. “Dear me, no. I am merely an employee of that lady. You may call me Pansy.”
Lord Caire nodded. “Mistress Pansy. I would be very grateful for a moment’s conversation with Tommy Pett.”
“Why, may I ask?”
“He has some information I need.”
Pansy pursed her lips and cocked her head. “Why not? Jacky, go and see if Tommy is free.”
The guard lumbered off and Pansy gestured to the sitting room behind her. “Will you sit, my lord?”
“Thank you.”
They entered the little sitting room, and Lord Caire sank into a worn velvet settee, pulling Temperance down beside him. Across from them was a wide, low chair padded in sumptuous purple and pink. Pansy hitched one hip up and hopped backward into the chair. Her feet, shod in elegant heeled slippers, dangled inches from the floor.
She laid her pudgy hands on the chair’s arms and looked at Caire with a smile playing about her mouth. “You really ought to stop awhile with us, my lord, after you finish your business with my boy Tommy. I can offer you a special price.”
“I thank you, no,” Caire said with no inflection in his voice.
Pansy cocked her head. “We make a specialty of providing for the, ah, unusual requirements of gentlemen such as yourself. And, of course, your friend may participate as well.”
Temperance’s eyes widened as Pansy tilted her chin at her. She had no idea what Caire’s unusual requirements were, but she knew she should be disgusted at the mere suggestion that she would indulge in them with him. Except she was still trying to figure out her feelings when a pretty young man entered the room. He was slim with golden hair that fell in silken waves to his shoulders. He hesitated inside the doorway, eyeing Lord Caire uneasily.
Pansy smiled at him. “Tommy, this is Lord Caire. I believe—”
Whatever Mistress Pansy had been about to say was cut short by Tommy darting from the room. Lord Caire surged off the settee, flying after the boy silently. There was a scuffling sound in the hall, a thump and a curse, and then Lord Caire reentered the room, holding Tommy firmly by the collar of his coat.
“All right! All right!” the boy panted. “You got me fair and square. Let me go an’ I’ll talk.”
“I think not,” Lord Caire drawled. “I’d rather keep a firm grip on you while you talk.”
Pansy had watched this byplay with narrowed but unsurprised eyes. She stirred now. “Tommy’s night isn’t over yet, my lord. I do hope you’ll bear that in mind when you handle him? His price goes down if he’s bruised.”
“I have no intention of hurting your employee as long as he tells me what I want to know,” Lord Caire said.
“And what is that?” the dwarf asked softly.
“Marie Hume,” Lord Caire said. “What do you know about her death?”
For a boy who made his living in a St. Giles brothel, Tommy was a terrible liar. He looked away, licked his lips, and said, “Nothing.”
Temperance sighed. Even she could see that Tommy had some knowledge of Lord Caire’s mistress’s death.
Lord Caire merely shook the boy. “Try again.”
Pansy raised her eyebrows. “I’m afraid your use of Tommy’s time is costing me revenue, Lord Caire.”
Without a word, Lord Caire reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small purse. He tossed it at Pansy and she caught it deftly. After peering inside, she closed the purse again and hid it on her person.
She nodded at Tommy. “That’ll do nicely. Now talk to the gentleman, my lamb.”
Tommy sagged in Lord Caire’s grip. “I don’t know anything. She was dead when I found her.”
Temperance looked quickly at Lord Caire at this news, but if he was surprised to hear that Tommy, not Martha Swan, had found Marie, he gave nothing away.
“Were you the first to find her dead?” Lord Caire asked.
Tommy shot him a confused look. “Weren’t no one else there, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“When did you find her?”
Tommy screwed up his face. “It was a while back—two months or more.”
“What day?”
“Saturday.” Tommy darted a look at Pansy. “Saturday morn is my day off.”
“And what time did you arrive at Marie’s rooms?”
Tommy shrugged. “Maybe nine of the clock? Or ten? Before noon anyway.”
Lord Caire shook him again. “Describe it.”
Tommy licked his lips, glancing at Pansy as if for permission. The little woman nodded her head.
He sighed. “Her rooms were on the second floor at the back of the house. ’Twern’t no one about when I went to climb the stairs, save a charwoman scrubbing the front step. I was going to knock at her door—Marie’s—but it gave under my hand. It wasn’t latched, so I went in. The front room was neat as a pin; Marie liked to keep her things orderly, but the bedroom…”
Tommy halted his narrative, staring at the floor. He gulped visibly. “There was blood all about. On the walls and floor and even the ceiling. Lord, I’ve never seen such blood in my life. Her mattress was black with it and Marie…”