Page 39 of In Want of a Suspect

“And the killer is quite in the wind,” Lizzie responded. “I can prevail upon one of the Runners to escort me to a carriage to take me home.”

“I don’t think Darcy would like this one bit,” he said.

Lizzie appreciated Bingley’s concern, but why were some men so chivalrous when others were so rotten? Not that Lizzie knew for certain that it was amanwho had killed Leticia... after all, Lizzie had met at least one female killer. But somehow it was always other men that young ladies were taught to fear, even as they were told that men were their protectors.

It made very little sense.

“Please, see to your sisters. And mine, for that matter. I’m sure Jane is very upset. I can take care of myself.” Lizzie pretended to wave a man behind Bingley’s back. “Oh, in fact, I see a colleague now. Don’t worry about me!”

“Are you absolutely certain?” Bingley asked, looking over his shoulder in the direction of Jane.

“Positively!”

Bingley reluctantly led Violet away, and Lizzie was rather relieved. There was not a chance that she’d be able to remount the horse with her dignity intact, and now she could movemore easily in between the curious onlookers and the Runners who arrived on the scene. In her pocket, Leticia’s necklace felt heavy, but Lizzie was now past surveying the murder scene—she blended seamlessly into the crowd of onlookers, crossed the grassy area shielded by the copse of trees, and emerged onto the clear slope above the track. She walked with a steady gait and kept her eyes forward until she drew close to the row of hedges that ran between the slope and footpath that followed Rotten Row. With a quick glance out of the corner of her eye, she judged her moment—and made her move.

Reaching down and over the hedges, her fist closed around the collar of a shabby green jacket. The small body in her grasp froze, then began to thrash; but Lizzie had made sure she grasped the boy’s shirt beneath his jacket as well, so there was no easy way for him to shrug off her hold.

A pair of frightened blue eyes looked up at her and Lizzie looked down, stern but kind.

“Hello,” she said. “I think it’s time you and I had a proper chat.”

Nine

In Which Lizzie Consults an Unconventional Source

THE BOY’S NAME WASHenry.

It had taken Lizzie a few minutes to convince him that she wasn’t about to hurt him, haul him to the workhouse, or report him to the Runners, and another minute more to convince herself that he wasn’t about to run off before she finally released him. The boy’s eyes were wide, his face grimy, and his clothes were baggy, as if he’d begged for—or, more likely, stolen—them. He seemed no more comfortable standing in the middle of the park than Lizzie would be in the middle of a ballroom, so Lizzie said, “How about some mince pies?”

The boy’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything.

Lizzie took a gamble. “I know a good street vendor. Come along.”

She began to walk toward the park’s exit, hoping that if the boy had followed her halfway around London, he’d probably be willing to follow her a few blocks to a warm, free meal.

She was right.

Lizzie was silent as they walked to the closest market, and then found a vendor of mince pies whose hands and apron looked the cleanest. She bought two pies and took a seat on a nearby rough-hewn bench. Henry watched warily, out of arm’s reach but he sat on the far end of the bench when Lizzie held out one of the pies, and accepted it with a nod, then wolfed it down.

Lizzie waited until his last bite before she said, “Now, maybe you’d be so kind as to tell me exactly why you’ve been following me?”

The boy froze, and then when he realized that she wasn’t angry, he broke into a bashful smile. “You left your card,” he said.

Lizzie raised an eyebrow. “That I did.”

Henry shrugged, as if it was neither here nor there if she asked him stupid questions, but what he didn’t realize was that he’d revealed something very interesting to Lizzie: he could read.

And now Lizzie was truly intrigued.

She’d had her fair share of interactions with street children and paid a number of them to run errands and keep an eye on various matters for her. One of her favorites, Fred, was now apprenticed to a printer, which was no small feat for him considering that before last year, he hadn’t even known how to spell his own name.

Henry, she suspected, had not grown up on the streets.

Lizzie handed him her untouched mince pie, and he happily bit into it. “Do you live near the Mullins Brothers storehouse?” she asked.

“Don’t live nowhere,” the boy said around his second bite.

“But you hang about there at times? And you notice things.”