Thus it was that I found myself returning to London that afternoon. The way was miserable, with a sudden storm bringing filthy rain that made the roads treacherous and delaying us for half a day because of trees fallen over the road. They, and the mud, were a sore annoyance, but we rode faster on the second and third days, and on the following Friday we reached the city – too late to begin to investigate what had happened to Blackjack, but at least I could speak to Sam Cutpurse.
It was natural enough that the office I held often meant I must communicate with the lower classes of the city. As an intelligencer for Lady Elizabeth, it was often necessary to question the dregs of the population. Few, in my experience, were more loathsome than Sam Cutpurse.
He was a weedy, spiderly fellow, with a constant squint as if expecting at any moment to be struck heavily. Which, given his society and his companions, was all too likely. I admit, it was a sore temptation to strike him now, as he came into my room.
‘Well?’
He had a whining voice, much like a child demanding a new toy, a wheedling tone that hurt my ears as much as chalk on a slate.
‘I’m sorry, master, the fool went walkin’ ’ome and met the constable, and was arrested in a trice, and marched ’way.’
‘You said two were killed.’
‘Yeh, ’is tenant, and they ’eard him threatenin’ ’im. Jack had no means of denyin’ it. There was witnesses. And then a maid ’e ’ad been seein’, she were murdered ’n all.’
‘Who is this maid?’ I asked, frowning. Jack had always been over-keen on chasing after any woman – provided she had a pulse.
‘Some ’ousemaid called Alice. ’Er worked for a man called George Loughgren, up near the wall.’
He had little more to impart, and I was glad to be able to send him on his way.
So, Sir George Loughgren’s maid was dead. I knew of George Loughgren – few in London would not. He was a man with strong views, a large treasure chest, and many retainers. A man like him had enemies, and perhaps one of them had tried to pick the brain of a maid in his household? Someone seeking to hurt him. It was possible, but I really had little idea whether that was the case, or whether a comely maid had come to her end because she was attractive and crossed the path of a drunken scoundrel, just as I had no idea why Jack’s tenant might have died – but I was sure of the fact that coincidences are rare. The fact that Jack was now being held in gaol because of these two deaths meant there must be some reason, some connection between all three incidents.
I resolved to begin my investigations with the girl’s death first. If there were two murders, I could believe one: his tenant. If the maid was some wench he had been regularly battening against a wall, it would not surprise me. He was ever determined to climb up beneath the skirts of any maid he saw; he had the urges and lusts of a broken-down alley cat, and could be relied upon to try his fortune with any woman in his vicinity. But … the idea that he would murder one was both repellent and, so it struck me, unlikely. He was ever soft-hearted when he spoke of his lovers.
Perhaps I should go and speak with the household and see what I might learn about this dead woman. I must speak to George Loughgren.
Jack would have to wait until I had learned more and perhaps discovered why he had been suspected and arrested.