Narraway gave a slight smile, no more than an acknowledgment of a certain irony.

“Just go and find out, Pitt. She’s been taken to the Edgware Road police station. The house is on Connaught Square, apparently. Somebody is spending a good deal of money on it.”

Pitt gritted his teeth. “Mr. Ryerson, I presume, if she is his mistress. I suppose you are not saying that loosely?”

Narraway sighed. “Go and find out, Pitt. We need the truth before we can do anything about it. Stop weighing it and judging, and go and do your job.”

“Yes, sir,” Pitt said tartly, standing a little straighter for an instant before turning on his heel and going out, thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets and pushing the entire garment out of shape.

He set out along the street westward towards Hyde Park and the Edgware Road, intending to pick up a hansom as soon as he saw one.

There were more people around now, more traffic in the streets. He passed a newsboy with the earliest edition, headlining the threat of strikes in the cotton mills of Manchester. This problem had been grumbling on for a while, and looked like it was getting worse. Processing cotton was the biggest industry in the whole of the West Midlands, and tens of thousands of people made their living from it, one way or another. The raw cotton was imported from Egypt and woven, dyed and manufactured into goods there, then sold again all over the world. The damage of a strike would spread wide and deep.

There was a woman on the corner of the street selling hot coffee. The sky was calm and still, shredded with ragged clouds, but he was chilled enough to find the prospect of a hot drink welcome. There could well be no time for breakfast. He stopped.

“Mornin’, sir,” she said cheerfully, grinning to show two missing teeth. “Lovely day, sir. But a nip in the air, eh? ’Ow abaht an ’ot cup ter start the mornin’?”

“Yes, please.”