Read William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger for Free Online

whose pleasure it is to come ’ere an’ have a bit o’ fun, ’cos now they can’t do it without falling over the police at every street corner. There’s goin’ to be a lot o’ red faces around if they do! An’ a lot o’ short tempers if they don’t. We can’t win, whatever.”
    She sympathized with him silently, getting him more tea, and then fresh toast with black currant jam, which he ate with relish before thanking her and going disconsolately out into the ever-broadening daylight and resuming his thankless task.

    The following day the newspapers carried headlines on the shocking death of well-respected railway owner Nolan Baltimore, found in extraordinary circumstances in Leather Lane, off the Farringdon Road. His family was desolated with grief, and all society was outraged that a decent man of spotless reputation should be attacked in the street and left to die in such circumstances. It was a national scandal, and his son, Jarvis Baltimore, had sworn that it would be his crusade to clear away the crime and prostitution that stained the capital city’s honor and made such foul murders possible. The metropolitan police had failed in their duty to the citizens of the nation, and it was every caring man’s responsibility to make sure that it was not allowed to remain so.
    Of far more concern to Hester was the fact that the night after Constable Hart’s second visit to her, a young woman was brought into the house by her friends so seriously beaten that she had to be carried. The three frightened and angry women waited huddled in the corner, staring.
    The injured woman lay on the table curled over, holding her abdomen, her body shaking, blood oozing between her fingers.
    White-faced, Margaret looked at Hester.
    “Yes,” Hester agreed quietly. “Send one of the women for Mr. Lockhart. Tell him to come as quickly as he may.”
    Margaret nodded and turned away. She gave directions to one of the waiting women where to start looking for the doctor, and not to stop until she had found him. Then she went over to the stove for water, vinegar, brandy, and clean cloths. She worked blindly, reaching for things because she was too shaken and too horrified to see clearly what she was doing.
    Hester must staunch the bleeding and overcome her horror at such a wound, telling herself to remember the battlefields, the shattered men she had helped lift off the wagons after the charge of the Light Brigade at Sebastopol, or after the Battle of the Alma, blood-soaked, dead and dying, limbs torn, hacked by swords or splintered by shot.
    She had been able to help them. Why was this woman any different? Hester was there to do a job, not indulge her own emotions, however deep or compassionate. The woman needed help, not pity.
    “Let go of it,” she said very gently. “I’ll stop the bleeding.” Please God she could. She took the woman’s hands in hers, feeling the clenched muscles, the fear transmitting itself as if for a moment she were part of the same flesh. She was aware of the sweat breaking out on her skin and running cold over her body.
    “Can you ’elp ’er?” one of the women asked from behind. She had come over silently, unable to keep away in spite of her fear.
    “I think so,” Hester replied. “What is her name?”
    “Fanny,” the woman said hoarsely.
    Hester bent over the woman. “Fanny, let me look at it,” she said firmly. “Let me see.” With more strength she pulled the woman’s hands away and saw the scarlet-soaked cloth of her dress. She prayed they would find Lockhart and he would come quickly. She needed help with this.
    Margaret handed her scissors and she took them, cutting the fabric to expose the flesh. “Bandages,” she said without looking up. “Rolled,” she added. She lifted the dress away from the wound and saw raw flesh still running blood but not pumping. Relief washed over her, breaking out in prickling sweat again. It might be only a surface wound after all. It was not the