India Black by Carol K. Carr

all?”
    “A tiny waist. Big breasts and an arse the size of Lancashire.” She was a whore. What else was there to notice about her?
    “Is there nothing more you can tell me? No distinguishing marks? A mole, perhaps, or a scar? Did she have an accent?”
    “We all have accents here,” I said waspishly. “Depending on what the gentlemen want that day. Sometimes Arabella was Hungarian, sometimes from the East End, and sometimes she was the heir to the British throne.”
    My visitor frowned.
    “Look, I just hired her to work here, not pose for a study of the ‘Modern English Tart.’ I didn’t commit every freckle and beauty mark to memory. I’ve described her as well as I can to you.”
    There was nothing more I could tell him.
    “Perhaps you could leave me your address. If the case turns up, I’ll forward it to you.” It seemed the only logical thing to say, under the circumstances, and I was hoping he’d take the hint and vacate the premises.
    “You needn’t trouble yourself, India. That case is miles away by now.”
    “Well,” I said airily, “if you know where it is, you can collect it easily enough.”
    He gave me a mirthless smile. “Perhaps. In any case, I needn’t trouble you any longer. I think it would be to our mutual advantage to keep what happened here tonight to ourselves.”
    His admonition was hardly necessary; I’d no intention of ever uttering the word “Bowser” again.
    He took his leave of me then, gliding out the door and down the steps of Lotus House as coolly as if he were strolling through Hyde Park on a Sunday afternoon and hadn’t spent the night in a brothel disposing of a dead body. The mist had stopped and the fog was burning off slowly as he disappeared down the sidewalk, and I have to say I was damned glad to see the back of him.
     
     
     
    I spent the rest of the day in my room with the blinds drawn and a sleeping mask over my eyes. My midnight rambles through the city had been tiring, but the few hours spent in the company of that dark, calculating man had exhausted me thoroughly. I slept like the dead through the afternoon and into the early evening. Around six, Mrs. Drinkwater rapped abruptly on my door and careened into the room like a schooner blown off course. Through sheer luck she found the dressing table, and left me a pot of tea and a plate of beef sandwiches, which I fell on and devoured like a ravening wolf.
    After a hot bath, I was feeling myself again, so I descended the stairs and mingled a moment in the dining room with the girls, who were just finishing their egg and chips and getting ready for a night’s work. I adjudicated a dispute between Marigold and Lucinda over whose turn it was to wear the purple taffeta, listened to a complaint about the quality of wrist restraints I’d purchased for a discount from a brothel going out of business in the next street and gave my ear to a shockingly bold request that I supply the rouge for the house, as I could no doubt get it wholesale and save the girls a bundle. Next, they’ll be unionizing. Soon I’d have to negotiate labour contracts with the Association of Risque Trade Suppliers. It was growing increasingly difficult for an employer to exploit the workers in this country. I’d have to write my MP soon.
    Still ruminating over the difficulties of running a going concern in an era of labour unrest and rising costs, I retired to my office for a stiff whisky and a glance at the evening papers, which promptly made me forget the vicissitudes of business ownership. They were full of breathless headlines about the discovery of the body of Sir Archibald Latham, Member of the British Empire and Clerk to Lord Folkstone of the War Office. I read the stories with interest (naturally) and learned that Constable Thomas Peters (only three months on the force, poor lad) had been patrolling the streets of his district at eight o’clock when he was drawn to investigate the rear yard of an abandoned warehouse at the jute