“This way.”
Lewis guided them through the same door they’d seen Mr. Spencer go through. He picked up a lantern from a listing wooden side table, then led them down a darkened hall to a bare, dusty room scarcely larger than a larder. The chamber was empty save for a battered wooden desk that took up half the space and a single chair built for utility and not comfort. He placed the lantern on the bare desk and motioned for Miss Rangaswamy to sit.
Rani tentatively sat down, her large, brown eyes with their anxious expression lit by the pool of lantern light.
Lewis leaned against the wall. “Now tell me everything,” he said, his voice low but intense. “Leave nothing out,” he instructed. “Tell me what you saw, what you did, what you heard. Everything.”
For the fourth time that day, she repeated her story and the Bow Street Runner listened intently, his arms crossed and two fingers of his right hand resting lightly on his lips as she spoke, his blue eyes never leaving her face.
“Describe him,” he said.
“He is so high,” she said, holding her hand a few inches above the desktop. “Thin. He lost much weight on the ship. Brown eyes, dark hair like mine.” She wrinkled her nose, “And too long, he not let me cut it much.”
“And what of his skin tone?”
“He is like me,” she said, pointing to the skin color of the back of her hand. “Some call uskutcha-butcha. Not nice,” she said sadly.
“Kutcha-butcha? What is that?” he asked.
“He is not Indian and not English. Like half-baked child, that is whatkutcha-butchamean. That is what they call us,” she said with a deep sigh.
“Yes, as you say, not nice at all. You have an English father as well?”
She nodded. “I did.”
Lewis Martin caught her change in tense. He frowned.
Her lips compressed into a tight line. She looked down. “It is hard to bekutcha-butcha,” she said softly, “neither belonging to one or the other.” She looked up. “Sahib, he didn’t care I waskutcha-butcha. He hired me to care for Krishan.”
He nodded. “I understand.” He looked over at David Thornbridge. “And, sir, how did you become involved?”
“A mudlark alerted me there was a woman who needed help,” David explained.
“Does this mudlark have a name?”
“Dan Wright, at least that is what I’ve been able to wrest from him.”
Lewis gave a short laugh as he straightened and pushed away from the wall. “Daniel Wrightson. About ten to twelve years of age, hair more red than brown, favors a plaid cap.”
David smiled and nodded. “That’s the boy.”
David watched the runner take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He ran a hand through his tousled hair.
“Good. That might be the best break we have,” Lewis said.
“Why do you say that?” David asked.
“Lad’s observant.”
“That has been my thought in my dealings with him down on the wharf. He’s impressed me. I think he’s smart, too smart for a guttersnipe.”
“That he is,” Lewis agreed. “You don’t know the half of it.”
David saw a corner of the man’s lips kick up. He appeared to savor unshared knowledge of the lad. David felt a twinge of pique at the man’s greater familiarity.
“I’d like to see him do something other than scrounging the mudflats at low tide and catching whatever the ship’s crew throws overboard,” he said.
“Agree,” the runner said. “But now, we’d best be to it. I need to contact my informants to get them searching—including young Wrightson. Where can I find you?”
