Lyndsay Faye - Dust and Shadow

He shrugged. “There’s nothing I can say as will do any good. I hadn’t seen the woman in over three years.”

“Indeed? You were utterly estranged?”

Mr. Nichols pursed his lips, considering his words. “I’m no angel, Mr. Holmes, and I’ve my own mistakes to pay for…There was another woman, and Polly took on about it to the point of packing up her things and running off. I’ll say as much only because you’re said to know things you oughtn’t. But it was good riddance, so far as I was concerned. Polly more often than not had a drop in, and when she did, the children and I suffered for it. We had five, Mr. Holmes, and I think sometimes it was a strain on her. She wasn’t the mothering kind. When she left for good, I supported her for a year, but I cut off her allowance when I learned what she’d become.”

“I see. But what of the children?”

“Oh, I’ve care of the little ones, Mr. Holmes. I’d not let her lay one filthy hand on them once she’d set her course in that direction.”

“So you dissolved all contact with her, being yourself a man of unimpeachable moral character?”

I worried lest Holmes’s dig might offend Nichols, but our visitor merely answered gruffly, “She contacted me, all right, Mr. Holmes. She tried to cozen the authorities into forcing her maintenance money out of me. But they saw I didn’t deserve the keeping of her, common baggage that she was. She went from man to man and workhouse to workhouse. None of them kept her long. I’m sorry to say it, Mr. Holmes, but her death was less of a shock than it should have been.”

Holmes raised a single eyebrow coldly as he lifted the tongs and lit his pipe with an ember from the fire. “I should at least have thought the manner of her death would give pause to her kith and kin.”

At this, Nichols paled slightly. “Yes, of course. I’ve seen her. I would not wish that end on anyone.”

“I am very gratified to hear it.”

“It’s a hard push for me, though. I daresay it will cost me for the funeral, her dad not being well off and she without a penny to her name.”

“Yes, yes, I am sure it is a very trying time for you. You know of no enemies, nor of any further information which might aid us in our inquiries?”

“Polly’s only enemy so far as I could see was gin, Mr. Holmes,” replied Nichols with a knowing look.

“However, as I am sure you will agree, gin unfortunately was not responsible for her death,” returned Holmes with some asperity. “And now, Mr. Nichols, I must devote my entire energies toward my thoughts and my pipe, so you will forgive me if I bid you good morning.”

After I had shut the door upon Mr. Nichols, my friend exclaimed, “A nice spouse, Watson. He has at least absolved himself as a suspect. Crimes of jealousy require a measure of regard for the victim.”

“He seemed more shaken by the cost than by the death of his wife.”

Holmes shook his head philosophically. “It is not difficult for me to envision Polly Nichols’s flight from his establishment. If she was everything he says she was, they must have made a charming pair.” He set his lit pipe on the mantel and made for his bedroom.

“And what is the agenda for today?” I called out, helping myself to the egg and tomato Mrs. Hudson had sent up on the silver breakfast tray.

Holmes emerged donning his frock coat and adjusted his collar in the mirror above the fireplace. “I shall devote myself to Lambeth, my boy, and the pursuit of those who were actually acquainted with the deceased at the time of her death. Miss Mary Ann Monk identified Nichols, and so to her we must appeal. Have you any appointments?”

“I have canceled them.”

“Then finish your eggs while I call for a cab. The undiscovered country of Lambeth Workhouse awaits.”

As we rattled up to the front gates of Lambeth Workhouse, I had the distinct impression our destination was a prison, not a charitable facility to aid the plight of London’s poor. The autocratic structure, with its grey façade and absence of any grounds whatever, silently proclaimed its total devotion to severity and order. We were shown in by the angular Miss Shackelton, who informed us that Miss Monk was indeed availing herself of the shelter afforded by the workhouse, that she was far too given to drink, that she gave herself airs, that she was clever enough when she wished to be, that she would come to a bad end if not careful, and that she was to be found picking oakum in the common room down the hall.

As we walked down the featureless corridor, I caught glimpses of row upon row of cots suspended from poles in the common sleeping areas. We eventually reached a wide room filled with women young and old dressed in cheap workhouse-issue uniforms who were pulling apart old ropes to reuse what hemp fibers could be salvaged. Holmes made inquiries, and an overseer soon delivered to us Mary Ann Monk, with instructions we were to take her into the front parlour for questioning.

“Here, then. What do you toffs want me for?” demanded Miss Monk, upon our arrival in a cramped but well-furnished sitting area. “If it’s to do with Polly, I ain’t seen nothing more than what I said already.”

Far from the downtrodden creature I had expected to encounter in those hateful surroundings, we were confronted by a diminutive young woman whose radiant eye and smooth neck led me to think she could not be above five and twenty. She was very slim, though she appeared even thinner in the ill-fitting clothing issued her, her hair escaping its bounds in thick black spirals and her hands raw from the chafing of the rough rope she’d been picking apart. Her skin was greatly freckled with the effects of our brief London summer, and she had such an air of readiness about her, of good humour in her green eyes mixed with open challenge in her set shoulders, that I could not help but think that her friend’s killer was lucky not to have chosen Miss Monk as his victim.

Holmes smiled sympathetically. “Do sit down, Miss Monk. My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend and partner, Dr. Watson. We are aware of our imposition, but we would very much appreciate your recounting the details of your relationship with Mrs. Nichols.” The detective offered her his hand to help her into a chair.

Miss Monk laughed outright at this display of courtesy. “Well, if you don’t mind sitting down with a girl of my character, I’ve no objection. You’re no cops…I can tell by your shoes. All right, then, lads. What are you on to, and what the devil have I to do with it? I chummed about with Polly for a year or more, but that don’t mean I can tell you who done her in.”

Miss Monk’s careless manner did not shield from me her obvious regard for her friend, for as she finished, her eyes meandered over the worn Persian carpet beneath our feet.

“When was the last time you saw Mrs. Nichols before her death, Miss Monk?”

“I was out of the workhouse last week for four days and saw her at the Frying Pan. We had a drop or two, she met a gent, and I went on my way.”

“Do you know where she was living at that time?”

“She’d used to live in Thrawl Street, but two of the judies she shared digs with couldn’t cough up ha’pence between ’em for three nights running, so of course they were chucked out. Polly had slept rough before, but she knew if the law caught her in a park, she’d wind up back here straightaway, so she took a berth at the White House on Flower and Dean. They don’t take exception if a woman brings a friend home with her, if necessary.”

“What sort of woman was Mrs. Nichols? Did she have enemies you are aware of?”

Miss Monk sighed and tapped her severely abused man’s work boot against the chair leg. “Not a one. Polly weren’t the sort to have enemies. She swept her doss room and she kept herself tidy and she always had a kind word when she was about. She was a real good sort, Mr. Holmes, but you may as well know she was in the drink as often as she was out of it. Couldn’t bear the workhouse for more than a week at a time before the lack of gin and lack of food got to be too much for her. I don’t suppose you know it, but Polly took up as a maid in Wandsworth not long ago. She had her room and board all settled like and thought she’d get on well enough. But they were religious types, Mr. Holmes, and by the time she’d been without a drop for two months, she finally cut clear of the place.”