“And who might you be?” the young woman who had worked two shifts asked.
“Emma Fortescue,” I replied.
“You’re the new one,” she replied.
I smiled in return.
“You’re a day early.”
There was obviously a new employee expected.
“I wanted to get settled in before I start,” I replied.
“Yer a tall one, ain’t you. Mrs. Mayweather will have a bit of work with the uniform. I’m Maisy. Come along then, you’ll be sharin’ a room with me.” She turned and headed down an adjacent hallway.
“You don’t snore, do ya?”
Not according to the person who would know that, I thought, as I followed her.
“Where’s yer bag?” she asked as we reached the room.
“There’s just this,” I indicated the carpet bag.
“Well, come on, then,” she opened the door. “That poor woman, Mrs. Sutton. And I heard she had a boy?”
“It was in the dailies…” I replied.
“Gossip, and there’s plenty o’ that around here. Some didn’t like her ‘cause she kept to herself. Not one to talk yer head off, but she was kind. She didn’t stay here. Had a room some other place,” Maisy continued.
“But we got along. She was the floor matron in this building, although I gotta admit, she seemed a bit young. But she had the experience for the job from some other place.” She pointed past me.
“That will be your bed over there,” she continued, indicating the one against the wall. “And the bottom two drawers in the chest as well. The loo is down the hall. We share it with the rest of the girls.”
“I imagine the police were here,” I commented.
She nodded. “I heard they were, but not interested in the likes of me or the other girls that worked under her. I heard they met for several hours with the hotel manager.”
“How long had she worked here?” I asked, since Maisy seemed to be the talkative sort.
She was thoughtful for a moment. “Must be goin’ on two years now. She arrived about the same time I came here.”
“Did she say where she was from?”
“Not outright, but London for sure. I could hear it in the way she talked. You can tell them that are from outside London. Not like yerself, of course. You talk real proper.”
I set my bag on the bed with the pretense of staying.
“It’s sad about the boy,” I commented. “Did she speak of him?”
Maisy shook her head. “She was real secretive about him. The only way I knew anything, she was late one morning and upset. Said it was on accounta the boy was sick and she had to leave him alone.”
“What about the boy’s father?”
She shook her head. “She never talked about no one. I got the feeling he wasn’t around. As far as any other men,” she shrugged.
“There might have been someone before, but not now. And she was real dodgy lately about someone who came round. She took to having one of the lads at the dock in the alley check before she left of a night, like she thought someone might be there waitin’ for her. Maisy frowned. “And I got the feelin’ she was afraid.”
“Did she say who that man was?”
