Page 76 of A Treacherous Trade

“A-and Pulliver, Weston, Moore. They all received the goods, and then some.”

Croft and I glanced at each other, and I read the disappointment in his eyes. He hadn’t wanted this to be a stain on the police. I wondered what he would do now.

“Did you ever take photos of a woman named Alys Hywell?” I asked.

He nodded like one of those bobble-headed dolls one saw in the toyshops, almost overeager to speak in the presence of Croft.

The blasted investigator would want me to admit later how effective he was, in contradiction to me, I just knew it.

“I sold them all at a premium after she became fish food. To Davies himself.” Hartigan looked between me and Croft with a pathetic, calculating gaze. “I have an understanding with M Division. I’ve their protection.”

“Not anymore.” Croft stalked to him, and Hartigan shrank away as he was grabbed by the elbow and hauled to his feet. “Because no one will protect them fromme.”

“I-I’ll testify,” Hartigan wheezed, his voice squeaking like an adolescent’s. “I’ll squeal on them if you’ll let me go. I-I fell on a bit of hard luck, is all. And these whores, they talked me into taking pictures. They preyed on my weaknesses. Once the money started coming in, I was able to pay off my debts, see? I-I didn’t see no harm in it. What’s a few saucy images between lonely lads? No one’s hurt by it.”

“No one is hurt?” I scoffed. “Two women are dead! And you would blame them? You pathetic piece of—”

“Enough,” Croft barked, and to my intense mortification, my mouth snapped shut.

He said nothing more as he turned back to Hartigan, directing him to of his desk and cabinets. “You’ll turn over your stock to Scotland Yard, and you’ll make a condemning statement to the police and the High Court regarding all of your customers.”

“I will. I will in return for exemption from charge.”

Croft nodded, the vein at his own temple pulsing with strain. “Start gathering, Mr. Hartigan. I’m sending for them now, and we’re going to comb every inch of this shop.”

Hartigan’s eyes darted this way and that, but he ultimately relented.

I trailed Croft to the front of the store. “You’re not going to question him about Alys and Jane?”

“Of course I bloody am,” he said. “Go home. You can’t be here when Scotland Yard arrives.” He ran a hand over his features, drawing them further down into a dark scowl.

“Why aren’t you arresting him?” I asked.

“Because,” he explained, with more grim patience than I expected from him, “thisisa fishing expedition. And as anyone who has fished can tell you, you use the smaller one to bait and catch the true prize.” He held the door open for me, and I paused, feeling like there was something else that needed to be done. Like we were missing something, somehow.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going ruin an entire division full of filth,” he said. “And when I do, I think I’ll find a murderer of women among them.”

ChapterSeventeen

Are you being brave or foolish, Fiona? To bait me is folly.

None of you find my gifts anymore. You do not deserve them.

But you know what I do to whores.

Best not be one.

Yours

for now,

JACK THE RIPPER

My legs gave out from beneath me, and I landed hard on the soft bed. My limbs were at once weak with shock and trembling with readiness. I ate up every detail of the letter, chewing the words as if I could taste the meaning both expressed and hidden in subtext.

Not that the message wasn’t direct.