Page 45 of Introducing Miss Joanna (Once a Wallflower 2)

“I imagine so. And some might be true. But we must not allow our imaginations to run away with us and do our utmost to find Charlotte.”

“Yes, Miss Jo.”

Black came to see Reade again the next morning as he drank coffee in his dining room. “The sun is barely over the yardarm, Black.” Reade folded his paper. “What do you have for me?”

“I spoke to Richards, sir. He tells me he followed Virden in the carriage to Hyde Park with the young lady. But Virden outwitted Richards on the way home.”

“Bloody hell! He lost him? How the devil did he do that?”

“Richards admits he expected Virden to take the same route home. He feared he’d been spotted, so he rode ahead of him. Virden turned off somewhere. Disappeared into thin air, so to speak.”

“Why wasn’t I told about this?”

“He didn’t report it. Said he thought it unimportant because he found Virden again two hours later at his home.”

Reade stared thunderously at Black. “Who recruited this fool?”

“I did, sir,” Black said despondently. “As he’d been a Runner, I thought he’d be good.”

“Why did he leave Bow Street?”

“There was some trouble. I only discovered it this morning after I spoke to him.”

“Never mind that now. Where did Virden disappear? Does Richards know that, at least?”

“A few blocks from Soho Square. Somewhere near a graveyard.”

“Richards isn’t cut out for this work. Find a replacement. Vet the next one more carefully, Black. There are enough good men looking for work after the war to choose from.”

“Yes, sir.”

Reade picked up his cup as the door closed. Soho Square. Hadn’t Joanna’s maid, Sally, mentioned passing near it on her way home? He’d have to pay a visit to the brothels. Soho was full of them. Not how he wished to spend the day, but there it was.

Chapter Fourteen

The hackney approached Solo Square. “We didn’t go to the square,” Sally said to Jo, her face pressed against the window. “We passed the sign.” She tapped the window. “Turn there.”

Another few turns, then the air became thick with rancid smells. People crowded into the Berwick Street markets, moving between the livestock pens, the piles of cabbages and potatoes, and stalls selling an odd assortment of wares. “Yes. I remember this market. Keep on this road.”

They continued down. “Where to next, Sally?” Jo asked, considering it wise to leave the maid to feel her way.

Sally moaned. “I don’t know…”

Aunt Mary held a handkerchief to her nose. “Sally may never remember, Jo.”

“Go left!” Sally yelled to the jarvey. “That peddler on the corner with the dog, he was there before. I remember him.”

A hunched-over old peddler in a tattered coat sat with his dog on a low wall, his array of goods arranged before him.

The road they followed ended in a smelly ditch.

“I must have made a mistake,” Sally said dispiritedly. “The houses were better than these. And there was a big oak tree.”

“Well, it was wo

rth a try,” Jo said, disappointed. For one exciting moment, she believed they were close.

With a muttered complaint, the jarvey turned the horses. They passed the old man again and continued on toward Oxford Street.

---