“Oh!” The scarf dropped from Sally’s fingers. She put her hands to her cheeks. “Perhaps if I heard his voice again…”
“It was merely conjecture, Sally. I am being unfair to the gentleman. Before we do our shopping, we’ll have the jarvey drive around the streets. Perhaps we’ll discover where the woman helped you and can continue our search from there.”
Sally bent her head over a spencer. “Very well, Miss Jo.”
“There is no need to be frightened, Sally, I shan’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”
Sally shrugged. “They didn’t want me. But they might want you, Miss Jo.” She glanced up, her expression grave. “I’ve been talking to the maids belowstairs. They’ve heard horrible stories.”
“I imagine so. And some might be true. But we must not allow our imaginations to run away with us and do our utmost to find Charlotte.”
“Yes, Miss Jo.”
Black came tosee Reade again the next morning as he drank coffee in his dining room. “The sun is barely over the yardarm, Black.” Reade folded his paper. “What do you have for me?”
“I spoke to Richards, sir. He tells me he followed Virden in the carriage to Hyde Park with the young lady. But Virden outwitted Richards on the way home.”
“Bloody hell! He lost him? How the devil did he do that?”
“Richards admits he expected Virden to take the same route home. He feared he’d been spotted, so he rode ahead of him. Virden turned off somewhere. Disappeared into thin air, so to speak.”
“Why wasn’t I told about this?”
“He didn’t report it. Said he thought it unimportant because he found Virden again two hours later at his home.”
Reade stared thunderously at Black. “Who recruited this fool?”
“I did, sir,” Black said despondently. “As he’d been a Runner, I thought he’d be good.”
“Why did he leave Bow Street?”
“There was some trouble. I only discovered it this morning after I spoke to him.”
“Never mind that now. Where did Virden disappear? Does Richards know that, at least?”
“A few blocks from Soho Square. Somewhere near a graveyard.”
“Richards isn’t cut out for this work. Find a replacement. Vet the next one more carefully, Black. There are enough good men looking for work after the war to choose from.”
“Yes, sir.”
Reade picked up his cup as the door closed.Soho Square.Hadn’t Joanna’s maid, Sally, mentioned passing near it on her way home? He’d have to pay a visit to the brothels. Soho was full of them. Not how he wished to spend the day, but there it was.
Chapter Fourteen
The hackney approachedSolo Square. “We didn’t go to the square,” Sally said to Jo, her face pressed against the window. “We passed the sign.” She tapped the window. “Turn there.”
Another few turns, then the air became thick with rancid smells. People crowded into the Berwick Street markets, moving between the livestock pens, the piles of cabbages and potatoes, and stalls selling an odd assortment of wares. “Yes. I remember this market. Keep on this road.”
They continued down. “Where to next, Sally?” Jo asked, considering it wise to leave the maid to feel her way.
Sally moaned. “I don’t know…”
Aunt Mary held a handkerchief to her nose. “Sally may never remember, Jo.”
“Go left!” Sally yelled to the jarvey. “That peddler on the corner with the dog, he was there before. I remember him.”
A hunched-over old peddler in a tattered coat sat with his dog on a low wall, his array of goods arranged before him.
