Dita had jotted down Lydia’s address before returning the file to the drawer and escaping the office, unnoticed.
“I could ask Evelyn, another shopgirl, about Lydia, if you want,” Dita said as she handed Leo the scrap of paper with the address on it.
“No, don’t bring her up. I don’t want you to appear interested in her at all. It could be dangerous.”
After Dita’s answering sigh, Leo realized how much like Jasper she’d just sounded.
After rising earlier than usual the following morning, she set out for Brewer Street on foot, hoping to arrive around the timethe landlady at the boardinghouse would be providing breakfast to her lodgers. Leo wanted the chance to speak to the other women who lived there, if possible. She anticipated that the landlady would allow Leo inside when she announced that she brought news of her missing lodger.
Mrs. Ferland, a middle-aged woman who offered rooms to working-class women, invited Leo inside and led her to a small but cozy sitting room. It was empty, though the voices of her lodgers drifted in from another room, alongside the clatter of cutlery and china.
“You said you bring news of Miss Hailson?” the landlady asked, her concern evident by her fraught, imploring stare. “I went to the police station on Vine Street yesterday when she didn’t return for a second night. They suggested that she’d taken off. But that isn’t like Lydia. Not that they listened any.”
Not all police stations were staffed with good officers, as Leo well knew. She wasn’t surprised that Mrs. Ferland’s worry for her lodger had been dismissed.
“I’m sorry to have to report to you, Mrs. Ferland,” Leo began, “but Miss Hailson is dead.”
The landlady’s eyes scrunched shut, and her chapped hand came up to cover her mouth. “Oh no. Oh, how awful.” She sat down in the nearest chair. “What…what happened to the poor girl?”
Leo had not known what to expect from Lydia’s landlady—if she would be caring, or cold and businesslike—but this reaction of sorrow heartened her. She took a seat on the chair adjacent to Mrs. Ferland.
“She was strangled,” Leo provided, which caused the woman even more visible horror. “I am assisting a man who knew Miss Hailson and would like her murder investigated.”
Teary-eyed, the landlady lowered her hand. “Are the police not doing that?”
“Not just yet.”
After the way she’d been treated at the local station, Mrs. Ferland only pursed her lips and gave a shake of her head.
“Mrs. Ferland,” Leo began, her questions many, and her time short. She imagined the woman also needed to see to her lodgers. “How long had Lydia been living here as your lodger?”
“About four months,” she answered. “She were a good lodger. Kind and respectful.”
“Did she have family or friends, or perhaps a beau?”
“No, none of that. A few of the other girls here invited her to join them on an evening out from time to time, but she always said she were too busy.”
“Doing what?” Leo asked.
“Working,” the landlady said readily.
Leo blinked, confused. “But how could she work in the evenings? She was employed at Gleason’s Department Store.”
The store closed its doors in the early evening.
Mrs. Ferland dabbed at the corner of her eye and sniffed. “I saw that dress she were wearing lately and knew she were off to that store each day, but that weren’t her real work.”
Intrigued, Leo leaned forward. “What was her real work?”
Agitation gripped the woman, and she sniffled again as she stood up, arms crossed. “I knew it were too risky. Worried something might happen, and now…Oh.” Her chin quivered as she tried to stem the flow of new tears.
Leo got to her feet and asked again, “Mrs. Ferland, what was Lydia’s real work?”
The landlady composed herself and answered, “She were a writer. A reporter, though no paper would hire her on permanently, of course, seeing how she were a woman. But she published stories wherever she could sell them. Did well enough to pay her rent on time every week.”
A thrill vibrated through Leo, opening a whole new avenue of inquiry. If Lydia had been a reporter, did that mean she had been working at Gleason’s for a story?
When she asked Mrs. Ferland this question, the woman bobbed her head. “That’s right, undercover, she said. It were a big story, she claimed. One that were sure to get her onto the payroll of a newspaper.”
