Page 40 of In Want of a Suspect

Henry neither confirmed nor denied, but he stopped eating and regarded her warily.

“Perhaps you’ve seen that woman before, the one who was murdered in the park?”

“The French lady,” the boy agreed. “She’s nice to people like us.”

People like us?“Children who live on the streets?”

Henry nodded. “Grown-ups, too.”

Lizzie thought back to the previous day. Josette had admitted to helping refugees, but through a relief society. Had Leticia taken things one step further and gone to meet the émigrés in the streets? “Are you sure it was she, and not her cousin? They look alike.”

He gave a noncommittal shrug. “There was only ever just one lady. She brought us food. And one time, mittens.”

“Do you mean she brought them to you, where you lived?”

The boy nodded again, looking at Lizzie as if she were extremely dense.

Leticia Cavendish was a do-gooder, then. And more likely to help people where they were rather than dispense aid from a drawing room.

But why?

Perhaps she was a kind person. Or it could be that she had an ulterior motive. Lizzie thought of the challenging stance that Leticia had adopted when Lizzie and Darcy had revealed thereason for their visit, the way she seemed to needle Josette and Mr. Hughes. She hadn’t been fearful at all but rather almost amused.

What had been her angle?

Henry had finished the second mince pie and was watching Lizzie warily. Lizzie found herself at a loss for words. Why on earth had this little boy decided to follow her? He appeared both hungry for her attention and skittish of what she might ask next.

Which led her to wonder... had he seen something?

“I don’t think the men who own the storehouse that burned much like the people Miss Cavendish was helping.”

“They don’t like anyone,” Henry countered, matter of fact.

“Oh?”

Lizzie waited. It didn’t take long for Henry to fill the silence. “Everyone knows not to sleep on their side of the street. They kick at us and throw rocks. Sometimes buckets of filth.”

Lizzie tried to control her sharp intake of breath but was unsuccessful. A part of her wanted to say,But surely not Jack!Instead, she said, “I’m sorry, Henry. That was very wrong of them.”

“Do you have the dog?”

“The dog... Guy?” Lizzie asked.

He nodded.

“Yes, I took him home. Mr. Parry said no one wanted him, and he was going to turn him out into the streets.”

Henry nodded, and looked down. “That’s good, miss,” he mumbled, sounding sad. “He’s a good dog.”

Lizzie was at a loss as she realized that if Henry were a dog,she would think nothing of sweeping him up in her arms and taking him home with her. But he wasn’t a dog, he was a human boy. And it was the cruelest of ironies that some people treated dogs better than other human beings.

“You can always call on me if you need anything, you know,” Lizzie began to say.

But she didn’t get very far before Henry jumped to his feet and ran, faster than she thought possible. By the time she got to her feet, he was gone.

When Lizzie arrived home at Gracechurch Street, she was dissatisfied and distraught by the day’s events. Therefore, her mood was not helped when Jane met her at the door with a worried expression.

“Darcy’s here,” she whispered to Lizzie as she stepped inside, “and Mama has been questioning him in the drawing room for almost a quarter of an hour!”