Page 87 of A Treacherous Trade
I made an exasperated sound and swung around on my boot heel, angling toward the main road.
“Let me summon a hackney,” he called after me. “Surely you cannot walk to St. Crispin’s Hospital in twenty minutes,”
“Watchme,” I snapped, irritated in the extreme that he’d used his larger-than-necessary shoulder to shove into my day. My time with Dr. Phillips always seemed rather sacred to me. I couldn’t say why exactly. He was a kind, eccentric gentleman who valued science and his own brand of logic over just about anything else.
Which was why he’d often show me reports and divulge things a mere laywoman like me wasn’t technically supposed to know. We had an understanding, he and I. One in which he used my business to supply universities and surgeries with organs, cadavers, and skeletons for articulation and such. And I used him to disappear the bodies the Hammer or the Blade made it difficult to be rid of.
We arrived by hackney about fifteen minutes later, my mood no better than it had been when Croft arrived on my stoop.
“You could tell mesomethingyou know,” I snapped at him as I jogged along the hospital’s walk to keep up with him, taking two steps for every one of his. “Surely you understand how difficult it is to devote time to this and then put it by, allowing someone else to take over.”
He thrust his hand toward the entrance. “You callthisputting it by?”
I made an unladylike noise. “This appointment was made days ago, as you are apparently aware, and I thought that I might learn something useful still. Besides, I’m rather fond of Phillips, and he shares his best port with me.”
“At half nine in the morning?”
“Coffee, then. Are youreallygoing to keep your progress from me just to be mulish? Ibledfor this case, for your sister. Or have you already forgotten?”
I’d have liked to think myself above leveraging such things to get what I wanted, but here we were.
Croft’s thick neck audibly worked over a difficult swallow. Likely his pride.
Or his principles, I thought a bit guiltily. I knew it was against every rule that made him a detective to share information about an active case. Still, I needed to knowsomething.
He held the hospital door open for me, admitting one other elderly man who might be a patient or visitor, it was impossible to tell. Taking a surreptitious glance around the empty, echoing halls of the stately building, he gave a sigh. “On Charles Hartigan’s word, we questioned Davies and his cohorts at M Division. We searched their desks and their offices. We found some nude photographs in a desk, but it wasn’t enough to obtain a warrant from the courts to search anyone’s home.”
“How is that possible?” I asked. “You had testimony and you found evidence in Hartigan’s shop! Surely that’s enough to—”
“Because it’s a bloody murky law to begin with, one hardly any court in the Empire wants to prosecute. Hell, I’d wager my salary that most so-called decent men have a few dirty photographs tucked away somewhere.” We descended the stairs to the subterranean level, where the morgue and coroner’s office would be found. “When we as police and the courts start to enforce these sorts of moral laws, fanatics will use the legal precedent to start silly wars. Before you know it, priceless paintings hung in museums, and homes, and the bloody palace suddenly become illegal contraband. Rioters will tear down the nude statue of Achilles in Hyde Park. Do you see what I mean?”
I did. And I thought the law rather silly myself. But in this case, it was something that could help. “Then why have these laws at all?” I asked.
“Mostly? To assuage the prudes in Parliament, and to sometimes have an extra indecency charge to slap onto a pimp, smuggler, or vice lord. It’s helpful if children are being preyed upon, or if the images are too… explicit. If I’m honest, more of the women in the photographs get in trouble than the men who supply them or those who enjoy them. That never sits right with me.”
“What do you mean by ‘too explicit’?” I asked.
“Another grey area, really.” A slight pink color rose above his collar.
I stopped him beneath the sign that advertised MORGUE by gripping the coat at his elbow. “So, what, Davies and his accomplices get away with possible murder and we’re left with no more leads?”
“Trust me, Fiona, no one is more disappointed than I.”
“I very much doubt that.”
His hand froze on the door latch, and he whirled on me. “Do you have anyideawhat it does to a detective’s reputation when he investigates his own kind?”
“Why would it, if they were doing something predatory and illegal?”
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s difficult to explain. Complicated.”
“But…” I shook my head, stymied by this. “Policemen have a moral obligation to be better than the common man. If they’re going to be granted the authority to enforce the law, they are expected to be beyond reproach regarding it.”
“In a perfect world, yes, but when have positions of authority ever drawn men who are above reproach?”
My mouth shut so quickly, my teeth clacked together. Mostly because he’d made an excellent—if intensely demoralizing—argument.
“I know these things are rarely ever that simple,” I said, releasing his arm. “I suppose I just hoped this wasn’t all for nothing.”
