"Oh, it's ye again,"said the slightly built brunette from Aberdeen. "Surely that wee lad isnae still up prowling 'round with ye at this hour?" She looked past the butler into the misty, empty streets behind him, which the rain and cold had effectively cleared of most humans hours ago. There was no one else to be seen but one rough character lounging in the shadows of a nearby pub, nursing a pint and keeping well to the shadows.
"My young master is fast asleep in his own bed tonight. However I'm sure he would be... moved by your concern over his health and safety," said the tall, dark-haired butler, thinking of how his master would be moved all right: moved to fury over the woman's attempted coddling. "He has directed me to continue to pursue this case as I see fit this evening while he rests. I could not help but think you might have told us more of your story of this afternoon if there had not been such a young child present," he said softly as he drew the backs of his fingers across her heavily rouged and powdered cheek, smudging the pristine white kid gloves with the greasy cosmetics. When he reached her jaw he uncurled his long, thin fingers and trailed them down her throat and over her swelling cleavage, finishing up with a handful of breast.
"Heh. Well ye were right there, Mister High-n-Mighty Butler. But y'ken I'm workin' now. Just 'cause you work in a swanky 'ouse for some toffy-nosed little lordling too young to grasp the ways o' the world, don't mean you don't, am I right?"
"Oh yes. Though you should not underestimate my young Master. He has seen far worse than this, and may well know more of the way the world works than even you do. But yes, I'm well aware of 'how this works', how you work."
"So you'll attend my words when I tell yer that's my man standin' over there outside the Cock n' Stile, nursin' a bevvie and keeping 'is eye on us, making certain I'm wastin' no time talking to them as ain't payin' customers," she grinned up at him slyly. "But now he wouldn't mind if you paid me for my time..."
"Yes. I had every intention of doing just that. Just tell me what you want."
"Lean in, I'll tell it ye..." and she quickly whispered her terms into his ear.
"Fine, that's fine. Here. take this," he passed her a few coins. "I shall pay you the rest when I'm satisfied."
"Where do you—"
"Have you taken rooms near here?"
"Oh aye. Me and another girl and her wee bairn, we share the room, but she's a workin' girl too and won't bother us if I hang a scarf on the door. It's our signal."
"Let us go then," he murmured, eyeing the man in the shadows across the way while taking hold of her bone-thin arm. They started walking down the thoroughfare.
"In 'ere," she directed, coming to a shadowed doorway. "Just up these 'ere stairs to the first floor. Mind yer step, now," she whispered, taking hold of his upper arm. "That third one's a bit dodgy—ooh, hard as a rock you are," she said with a leer and a squeeze of his bicep. Then she giggled. "I don't usually say that one 'til their trousis're down around their ankles, heh, and I don't usually mean it neither. But you, yer a looker you are... I'd a never suspected such muscles on such a slim figure, yer like a bleedin' whippet now, aren't ye? Long legged and lean... I reckon I'd be pleased to do you for free, only Freddy's seen you and me together already, so...
"This is it," she said, touching a door on her right "Just bide a wee until I get me key out." She struggled to get to the bottom of the pocket in her tattered skirt and fetch out the key. The butler silently hoped the pocket hadn't developed a hole. He didn't fancy having to service a whore up against some wall in a filthy alley on such an unpleasant night.
"You'll forgive my saying so but you look ill-nourished. This man, this pimp of yours, does he not see that you're well fed?"
"Bless you sir, he does for us well enough, but it depends on what I bring 'im too. The other girls is quick to pocket their customers' watches, gloves, anything they can get their thievin' 'ands on, but I was a good girl afore I fell into this life. I reckon it's bad enough I spread my legs for a livin'—pardon my language—I don't care to add thievin' to my list o' sins, y'ken?" She dropped her shawl then and quickly slipped out of her skirt. He stopped her going further.
"That isn't necessary miss, please, just—" he waved a hand, trying his best to avoid unnecessary, time-consuming intimacies, but she wasn't having it. He looked about the tiny room. There were no chairs save one which had clothing and a portmanteau on it but it definitely did not look worth the struggle of unloading it. He doubted it would hold his weight. The perched on the edge of one of the beds. There was not much more in the room beyond them: two beds. a few piles of clothing, a wonky chair and a kettle on the hob. The fire didn't look big enough to boil water for tea, let alone warm the room. The coal bucket was empty.
"I told ye already, doing for ye would be my pleasure," she smiled, reaching for his hair. He made himself not pull away. "Anyroad, I can talk while taking care of ye—unless of course you 'ad other plans for me mouth," she grinned lewdly, showing badly discoloured teeth and a gap or two.
"Fine, fine, just tell me what you know," he said as she joined him on the little bed and began to undress him as he slid his hands under her petticoats and up her legs. He let her get as far as pushing off his coat, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his vest.
"That's far enough," he told her and grabbed one of her wrists as she was reaching for his trouser buttons and caught her eyes with his own. "Now tell me what you know of the Billings murders."
"It's simple enough," she declared as she watched him open his trousers and free himself from the confining fabric. "Oh dear, I did say I could talk and work on you at the same time didn't I, but—" she whispered grasping the rampant flesh pointing at her with both hands, "I'm not so sure now. Oh!" she cried in surprise when he dove under her petticoats and roughly grasped her thighs, jerking them apart. "Oh bless me, a French kiss?!* I'll be owin' you before we're through here!" she muttered between gratified groans.
"Tell me," his voice rang out, not at all sounding as if its source were buried under a wide bloom of stained and ragged muslin.
"Oh... It were a murder right enough... just as your master said, though the peelers say otherwise," she avowed as she caressed, then clutched, then bucked against the buried head, hanging on tightly with both hands.
"And how do you know this?" he paused to ask, his voice as steady as if he were in church.
"I know it 'cause when 'e come 'ome drunk as a lord, he told me he'd done it and told—no, bragged what it had brought him in the way o' filthy luc-oh-OH!' she cried. "He's a terrible braggart, fit to shame the devil,," she whispered, quivering from his ministrations. He straightened up and then drove himself into her mercilessly, pulling her into his lap all in one quick movement. 'Oh such a pretty man," she said, petting his face. "I wish all my customers was as fine and generous as you. Oh, yes... yes mmph!... I mean," she panted and waved her hand in a 'wait a bit' sort of gesture. "Yes t'were him alright, as sure as he was watchin' us from in front o' that pub. He's done murther for hire afore this too, I've seen it. Icewater in his veins, has that one. He'll gut ye as soon as look at ye." She fell silent for a bit, concentrating on the butler's hypnotic, rocking thrusts. A breathy sigh escaped her and her head fell back as if she were in a swoon. It soon snapped back and her whole body stiffened as her pleasure peaked. He chose that moment to press her body close to his and cover her mouth with his own.
It looked like a passionate kiss until she suddenly screamed into his mouth and tried to push away,, fighting him with everything she had. But after a brief struggle she went limp against him and her head lolled back, mouth still open and flecked with blood, eyes nearly closed as if sleep had suddenly taken her.
He laid her back onto the mean little bed, and threw the rest of her fee across her so it landed over her breasts and face.
"There. I am well satisfied," he said as he tucked himself away and buttoned up. He grinned and licked up a fleck of blood from his lower lip. "Now, to find that murderous keeper of yours."
And with that, he left the room and the cooling body, giving neither another thought.
...
*In the Victorian era the term 'French kiss' meant something entirely different to what it does today.