Page 15 of A Treacherous Trade
“Or she what?” Beatrice asked.
“Was someone paying for the rooms overnight?”
“No one.” Bea shook her head.
“Then if she didn’t have a key, she’d have had to… break in. Yes?”
Beatrice sat heavily, as if the starch had been let out of her knees. “It’s the only possibility.”
“Can you think of any reason why she’d do that?”
“No… I… I mean, only one reason. If she wanted to meet a client here, without giving the house its cut.”
“The housebeing you.”
“Yes,” she said, her demeanor toward me decidedly chillier.
“She could have been looking for information about Alys,” Amelia cut in, very obviously reaching for another explanation.
“Alys.” Beatrice’s eyes fluttered and she rubbed at her temple. “That rat bastard Orson Davies didn’t even ask about Alys…”
Amelia shook her head. “Doesn’t even want to consider two girls have been killed in a month? That’s a nearly impossible coincidence.”
“Is it?” Beatrice pressed the cool glass of her drink against her forehead. “In our line of work? It’s hardly unheard of.”
I turned to Amelia, whose face was set in a very familiar, very Croft-like scowl of determination. “You don’t believe Alys committed suicide?”
“Categorically not. She was a bright young thing. Thought too much of herself to do something like that, all told. Was looking for a rich protector, and would have found one, too. She was a consummate professional and popular with her clientele.”
“Yes,” Beatrice agreed softly. “Alys could have been the realm’s most celebrated courtesan someday. She had some very important customers. All she had to do was get out of her own way.”
They could have been speaking about Mary. She’d been a lovely friend, but one with more vices than scruples. Some people believed that meant she deserved to die.
“Bea,” Amelia said gently. “Do you think your enmity with the detective inspector is an impediment to the case? Should you perhaps request another one?”
“Don’t you think I did that with Alys?” Beatrice said with an acerbic bite. “That man, Davies, was one of Alys’s most faithful customers before she got too choosy for him. The way I see it, some might call that motive. But do you think his sergeant listens?” She made a bitter noise. “It’s all the same. Men all like whores until they’re dead, then they kick them aside like rubbish.”
“Not all men,” Amelia said. “There are a few good ones out there. Grayson is a notable exception.”
Bea pressed her lips together, and this time it was she and I who shared the speaking look.
Was Croft really so different than his masculine counterparts? He’d worked tirelessly to save his sister from such a profession. He was ashamed of her past. He’d treated me with disdain, and I often thought it was because of my decision to become a prostitute before this career chose me in the nick of time.
“Men.” Beatrice tossed back her second drink and slid a yearning look to the sideboard before a bout of coughs seemed to pin her to her chaise. “They think so much of what’s between their legs… Why then, I ask you, is a woman worth less the moment he puts it into her? And the more men she allows inside of her, the more worthless a human she becomes in their eyes. It’s one of life’s more infuriating paradoxes… that one tiny organ can sully an entire human.”
I thought about that. About Jack. About the fact that I was afraid to take a lover for that very reason.
Because he’d made it clear that my purity meant something to him.
He killed whores because he hated what they did.
Beatrice set her glass on the table in front of her. “I do know that you think Alys and Jane’s deaths are connected, Amelia, but the truth is, there’s just as great a chance that they are not. I think Jane was seeing someone outside of The Orchard, which I absolutely do not allow.” She speared Amelia with a look so full of meaning that the other woman’s eyes skittered away. “And whoever this person was should be the prime suspect in this murder inquiry. Whereas Alys… She might have been another tragic victim of Whitechapel’s violent streets.”
“Anything’s possible.” Amelia shrugged, obviously unconvinced.
“Could you not ask the other women in your employ?” I suggested. “One of them might know more. Might be willing to say what secrets the girls were keeping, now that their lives might be more at stake.”
Bea shook her head. “The girls don’t talk to me of secrets, I’m afraid. I’m not their friend; I’m their boss.”
