She calmed down somewhat on seeing that the intruder was a mere girl. Coughing and spluttering between sips of gin from the bottle she rose from the bed.

Focusing her eyes on me in the dim light, she came right up to me and, looking into my face, mumbled, 'I don't know you. Who sent you?'

Before I could answer, there was another question. 'How many months are you with child? It will cost you plenty, you know that.'

Before she could go any further I burst out, 'I'm not wanting to get rid of a baby. The cook at the Crescent Hotel sent me. She said you would tell me how I could bed with a man and not get pregnant.'

'So that's it, is it? Well, sit down on the bed.' She pulled up a wooden stool and sat facing me. 'You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. You get my meaning?' she queried.

I didn't and had no intention of scratching her filthy back or allowing her to put her dirty hands on mine.

Seeing the puzzled look on my face, she gripped my knee, took another sip of gin, and whispered hoarsely, 'How much are you going to pay for the secret knowledge that all women would like to learn?'

I opened my purse and offered her half a sovereign.

Displaying three brown-stained teeth in what was meant to be a smile, she said, 'Make it a gold sovereign and I'll tell you all you want to know and show you how to do it.'

I put the coin back in my purse and gave her a sovereign. Money was of no importance to me at the time as I had plenty of it. If she had asked for more I would have given it to her without any argument.

She brought forth from a corner cupboard a piece of sponge about the size of a hen's egg, a small bottle of vinegar and a wooden clothes peg, pouring a small portion of the vinegar into a cup she then filled it nearly to the brim with water. Putting the sponge into the cup she held it down with a finger until it was well soaked with the liquid.