The Price of Murder by Bruce Alexander

struck most immediate by the quiet that pervaded them. There was little talk or laughter to be heard—a few mumbles from the tables, perhaps—but nothing so demanding as a conversation. That awful silence is what I recall most vividly. And again, how different this was from those rowdy dives in Bedford Street. There one could barely hear his own voice from the roar of the crowd, day or night. A few even offered music of a sort.
    Why, I recall the last such place we called at in Seven Dials—and well into the afternoon it was. The place had no name, or at least none that I can remember—and no sign or decoration of any sort; all that I can recall is the single word, GIN, painted in bold letters upon the door.
    We entered, and for a moment we were blinded by what at first seemed a total absence of light within the place. Yet the absence was not complete; a few candles burned inside, and as our eyes customed to the dimness, we did at least perceive the size and shape of the world we had entered. And yes, a “world” was just what it seemed, so distant and different was it from that we had just left. There must have been twenty-five or more seated at tables and standing at the bar. A few of them looked our way, staring at two who plainly did not belong. We were intruders, no question of it. Slowly, still surveying the dark interior as best we could, we made our way to the bar. (I noted, by the bye, that none made comment upon Mr. Deuteronomy’s size at that location, nor had they in such places as we had visited earlier.)
    The innkeeper climbed down from the stool upon which he was perched and came over to us.
    “Which will it be?” he asked us. Then did he point to a sign up above his head. The sign did read: DRUNK FOR A PENNY/DEAD DRUNK FOR TUPPENCE.
    “Neither one,” said I. “Sir John Fielding did send me here to Seven Dials to ask a few questions of you. We’re curious what’s the last time you might have seen Alice Plummer?”
    “Who’s she?”
    “Well, you ought to know her,” said Mr. Deuteronomy to the innkeeper quite sharply. “She would come round here for her first glass of the day.”
    “That so? Well, we ain’t too good on names round here. You take all what’s in here now, about half of them couldn’t tell you their own names, much less anyone else’s. What’s she look like?”
    I, who had never seen the woman for whom we searched, could only shrug and gesture toward her brother. Yet, he provided quite satisfactorily.
    “She’s taller than me by near a foot,” said Deuteronomy. “She’s got kind of mousy-colored hair, blue eyes, and wears a blue cape that I gave to her.”
    “That ain’t much of a description.”
    “Well, it’s the best I can do.”
    “What about this?” said I. “She had a daughter about seven years old—but small for her age—name of Maggie.”
    “We don’t serve them that young around here,” said the innkeeper sternly. “You got to draw a line somewheres.”
    “I didn’t say you did serve the little girl,” said I. “I meant only that she might have been along.”
    “Oh, well, let’s see.” He concentrated visibly, a hand to his forehead, a pained look upon his face. “Wasn’t there a Beak Runner come around a couple of times, asking after her? I mean the little girl, of course. He said she’d been stole. Now I recollect her and the woman who used to bring her in.”
    “That’s her, all right,” cried out Mr. Deuteronomy as loud and jubilant as if she had thus been brought back to life. “That’s the both of them!”
    “Well, I’ll tell you what I told that Beak Runner. I ain’t seen either one of them for near a month.”

FOUR
    In which Maggie is buried, and her uncle continues the search
     
 
 
 
Had there been mourners in attendance, the funeral of Margaret Plummer would have been grand as any. Strange it was to hear choir and organ in the nearly empty nave of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden. They thundered forth in that early