“The official names of places are often meaningless, nothing more than boring labels, while the names given by ordinary people tend to be vivid and descriptive.”
Elisa translated the words from [Simon’s Log] into something she could use and said them to Mabel and Eleanor, who were holding their noses.
Mabel covered her nose and mouth with her left hand while fanning the air with her right. Her muffled voice came out from behind her hand. “Now I know why they call it Stinking Water Alley.”
Eleanor nodded vigorously.
“Once your nose gets used to it, you won’t notice the smell anymore,” Elisa said, speaking from experience.
After letting the enforcer who had guided them go, Elisa glanced at the sun. It was already nearing noon. Getting here really hadn’t been easy.
Fortunately, they had finally reached their destination.
Beside a foul-smelling drainage ditch stood a row of three-story brick houses. This was Rookery Lane, and the sixth door was Number 6.
They knocked on the door, and a voice soon came from inside. “Who is it?”
Elisa looked at Eleanor, while Mabel looked at Simon, silently asking how they should answer.
Eleanor stepped forward. “Police. Open the door.”
The door opened a crack. Eleanor took out her police badge and passed it through.
The door immediately opened. From the darkened house emerged a girl who looked about eight or nine years old. She handed the badge back to Eleanor.
She seemed timid, looking uneasily at the four people standing in the street.
“Take me to William’s home,” Eleanor said bluntly.
William was the name of the boy who had been attacked and killed.
The girl shrank back, staring fearfully at Eleanor as her face turned pale. She had been frightened into silence.
“Isn’t this William’s home?” Mabel asked, looking at the girl.
The girl caught sight of the red hair beneath her hat brim and shrank back another step, growing even more frightened than before.
In the royal capital, red hair was almost exclusively for nobility.
“What’s your name?” Elisa joined in, trying to start with a simple question. It was an interrogation technique.
The girl clung tightly to the doorframe. Red eyes too were a mark of noble blood.
For the poor, having anything to do with nobles was rarely a good thing. No noble would take kindly to people like them, and such encounters almost always ended in disaster.
Tears began to well up in the girl’s eyes.
“Huh? Why are you crying? I can play with you!”
“Don’t cry!”
“Look, here’s one shilling!”
The three young ladies scrambled to comfort the girl in their own ways, but neither Mabel’s offer to play with her, Eleanor’s command, nor Elisa’s bribe managed to calm her down.
Simon sighed. Not one of these three young ladies had a maternal bone in her body.
[Simon picked up the girl and cheered her up with a magic trick.]
Elisa curled her lips. It was just a little sleight of hand where he made a coin disappear!
Damn it, I already offered her three shillings! Is that stupid trick really worth three shillings?!
“We’re friends of Miss Susanna.” Simon wiped the tears from the girl’s face. “We’d like to ask your mother a few questions.”
At the mention of Susanna’s name, the girl finally relaxed. Blushing, she gently pushed at Simon’s arm, wanting to get down from his embrace.
Simon set her down and introduced the members of Mabel’s investigation team. The girl told them her name as well.
Her name was Beth, and she was William’s younger sister.
“Mom isn’t home. I’ll go get her.” Beth hurried out of the alley.
Mabel’s team waited for half an hour before Beth came trotting back with two people following her.
They were William’s older sister Ruth, and his mother Fanny.
Fanny and Ruth led the group through the darkened stairwell to the second floor, where they opened the door to the front room. A cramped little space greeted their eyes.
A double bed took up half the room, while two straw mats were spread across the floor. Those were where they slept.
Beside the straw mats stood a small table covered with hard bread and scraps of fabric, serving as both a dining table and a sewing table.
There wasn’t enough room for everyone inside, so Simon and Elisa had no choice but to stand outside on the stairs.
Mabel and Eleanor were stunned by how cramped it was. Mabel asked, “You live in a place like this?”
Fanny replied, “This is already pretty good. At least we don’t have to sleep on the streets or squeeze in with a crowd of other people.”
[Simon adds inwardly that “squeezing in with a crowd” means renting a bedspace. A bed generally costs five pence a night, while an entire room costs around five shillings a week. A single room is often home to a family of five or six, while a three-story house like this usually contains six rooms and houses twenty or thirty people in total.]
Elisa was startled. There were plenty of poor people in the Archipelago too, but they didn’t live in such crowded conditions. And five shillings a week for a single room? How much could these poor people possibly earn in a week?
Inside the room, Mabel and Eleanor began asking about William.
Little Beth wasn’t of any use to them, so her older sister Ruth shooed her out of the room to make more space for Mabel and Eleanor.
Elisa picked her up and asked her a few questions of her own. She wasn’t interested in the murder case; what she wanted to know about was Beth’s family.
There had originally been five people in Beth’s family. Four years ago, her father had been crushed to death by machinery at a factory. A week ago, her ten-year-old brother William had been murdered by a criminal. Now only Beth, her mother, and her older sister Ruth remained.
Her mother Fanny was a cleaner without steady employment. She went wherever she could find work and earned between six and ten shillings a week. Her older sister Ruth had just started working at a match factory, earning four shillings a week.
Beth did small handicraft jobs at home and could earn a few pence herself, which she used to buy baked potatoes.
At first glance, the family’s income didn’t seem particularly low. A low-ranking male servant earned only six shillings a week. More than Ruth, but less than Fanny.
But a male servant could save his entire weekly wage, since the estate covered his food, lodging, and daily necessities. Beth’s family, on the other hand, had to pay exorbitant rent and buy their own food and necessities. They had nothing left over at all.
Elisa stroked little Beth’s hair and quietly slipped a one-pound gold coin into her pocket.
[Simon witnesses Miss Elisa’s act of kindness. He wonders why Miss Elisa would give her a gold coin. Many merchants in the slums don’t even have a pound in savings and wouldn’t be able to make change. A gold coin would be difficult to spend and might even attract thieves.]
[After thinking it over, Simon suddenly understands. The wise Miss Elisa chose a one-pound coin precisely because it would be difficult to spend. Miss Elisa wants Beth’s family to learn to save money so they’ll have something set aside in case of an emergency.]
Elisa’s expression stiffened.
I didn’t think about any of that! I only gave her a gold coin because it was more convenient than a handful of silver!
Besides, even if they can’t spend it in the slums, can’t they just spend it in another district?! Beth’s family has two adults!
Still, I’ll gladly accept the compliment. Hehe, “the wise Miss Elisa.” That has a nice ring to it.
Elisa pinched little Beth’s cheek, then turned to look inside the room.
Mabel and Eleanor’s questioning was already drawing to a close.
“…Just a couple of days ago, that child happily told me he’d found a job and could start earning money for the family, but then…” Fanny held her eldest daughter and sobbed quietly.
Eleanor patted her chest. “Don’t worry. We’ll definitely find the murderer!”
“We don’t care about the murderer,” Ruth said, holding her mother. Her gaze was sorrowful yet calm. “No matter what happens, my brother isn’t coming back.”
Looking into those eyes, Eleanor opened her mouth but found herself at a loss for words.
[Simon realizes that this is a perfect opportunity to raise Miss Eleanor’s affection…]
“At the very least, we can prevent other families from suffering the same pain.” Elisa decisively seized the opportunity for herself.
Ruth was about to respond when her gaze fell on Mabel. The red-haired young lady had taken a banknote from her pocket.
It was a ten-pound note, something Ruth had only ever seen in discarded newspapers.
She swallowed her objection, gave a slight bow, and said respectfully, “You’re right.”
[Simon sighs inwardly. Money truly is the most persuasive language of all.]
After bidding farewell to Beth’s family, Mabel’s investigation team left Number 6, Rookery Lane. Elisa had been right. They had already grown accustomed to the smell of Stinking Water Alley.
“Where are we going next?” Elisa asked Eleanor.
Eleanor seemed somewhat distracted. She patted her cheeks, took out the map, and located the crime scene.
The scene had long since been cleaned up, leaving no traces behind. They then went to the Black Street Central Police Station to retrieve the case files but came away empty-handed there as well.
After leaving Black Street and departing the East District, Mabel’s investigation team temporarily disbanded.
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