She was still watching him, a little puzzled.
‘Everyone has a name, mister,’ she finally offered him.
‘Of sorts,’ Cobie agreed gravely.
The Captain took a hand. Lizzie, starting on her roll and butter, continued to watch them, or rather to watch Cobie, who seemed to be the magnet which controlled her small universe.
‘I think,’ the Captain said, ‘that we ought to ask my aide, Miss Merrick, to find Lizzie something more suitable for her to wear. You and I must talk while she does so.’
To Cobie’s amusement Lizzie, pointing at Cobie, chirped, ‘I ain’t goin’ nowhere wivout ’im, and that’s flat.’
Again the Captain was surprised by his manner towards Lizzie. Cobie spoke to her pleasantly and politely after the fashion in which he would address Violet Kenilworth, Susanna, or the Queen.
‘You’re quite safe here, Miss Steele. You will be well looked after, I’m sure. Nothing bad will happen to you whether I am present or not. You have my word.’ He took her grubby hand and bowed over it.
Her eyes were still watchful. She had been betrayed too often to believe that he would necessarily keep his word.
‘You promise?’ was all she said.
‘I promise.’ He was still as grave as a hanging judge.
He was aware that the Captain’s shrewd eyes were on him, trying to fathom him. His whole interest centred on Cobie, not on the child. He had doubtless seen many like her—but few like him, someone apparently unharmed by the world’s wickedness.
The rage revived for a moment, to die back again. God knew, if no one else did, how near Cobie Grant had once been to dereliction, violation, and death!
The woman who had brought Lizzie the soup was called in once more, to take away both the empty bowl and the child, with orders to find something respectable for her to wear—after she had been washed.
Lizzie demurred a little at the notion of being washed, until Cobie said, his voice confidential, ‘Oh, do let them wash you, Miss Steele. I like washing, I assure you, and do it a lot.’
She stared at his golden splendour for a moment, before saying, ‘Yus, I can see yer do.’ To the woman leading her from the room she said, ungraciously, ‘I’ll let yer wash me so long as yer don’t get soap in me eyes!’
‘To be brief,’ Cobie said to the Captain, ‘I stole her from Madame Louise’s and then brought her here because I had heard that you were in the business of saving such lost souls. By good chance she had succeeded in escaping from the man who would have violated her. She owes her safety, if not her life, to her own wits.’
‘And to you.’ The Captain’s face was as impassive as he said this as that of the strange young man to whom he was talking. He was taking nothing on trust, not even the child’s rescuer. He was also showing little of the humble subservience usually offered in England by those of the lower classes to their superiors.
‘I was an instrument, merely,’ drawled Cobie, ‘there to see that she was not caught again.’
‘You were one of Madame’s clients?’
‘After a fashion, yes.’
Cobie was languid, unapologetic. ‘Now let us speak of her disposition. She told me that her stepfather had sold her to the house.’
Since he was a good Salvation Army man, the Captain could neither curse nor blaspheme, but the sound which escaped from him could have been construed as either.
‘Exactly,’ agreed Cobie. ‘The vile business is run from the top floors of Madame Louise’s sumptuous house—I’m sure you know that without me telling you.’
‘Yes—and I can do nothing. Evidence which would stand up in court is impossible to find. I cannot even do as much as you did tonight.’
‘Which is little enough. So many sparrows fall. I was privileged to save one—not more. Now, what shall we do with this one poor sparrow?’ Cobie was pleased to see by his expression that the Captain took the Biblical allusion.
‘Whom God has permitted you to rescue.’
The Captain was rebuking him, no doubt of that.
‘God.’ Cobie raised his beautiful eyebrows. ‘Ah, yes, the All Powerful. Who allows so many to fall into the pit…so many sparrows to fall…and who put Lizzie in the way of her captors. No matter, I will not refine on theological points with you—only ask what may be done for her.’
Cobie’s smile was cold, not really a smile at all. ‘Money is not a problem, sir.’
He put his hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out his purse, and opened it. A cascade of golden sovereigns fell onto the dirty deal table which stood between him and the Captain.
‘This is merely the beginning, a token of good intent.’
The Captain said, ‘Who, and what, are you buying? God, salvation, me or the child?’
Cobie answered him in his most sardonic mode. ‘All of them, sir, all of them. Everything is for sale, including salvation, and may be bought either by money—or by love. If your conscience will not allow you to help such a sinner as I am, then I shall take the child elsewhere to find those who are not so particular, but who will offer us assistance.’
The money was back in his purse and he was striding to the door. Oh, the damnable, monstrous arrogance of him, thought the Captain—but Lizzie’s rescuer had said ‘us’, associating himself with the child, and he would be failing in his Christian duty to refuse her succour because of the nature of the man who was asking for it on her behalf.
He thought that the stranger had a contempt for the whole world—himself included. He must not allow that to sway him. There were two souls to save here—not one. In some fashion it was not the child who had the greater need.
He said to Cobie’s back, ‘Wait one moment. There is a home where I may place her temporarily, where she will be safe. We have a shortage of permanent accommodation.’
‘More fallen sparrows than you can deal with?’
‘If you like.’
‘Then I will make you a proposition. Take Lizzie Steele into your permanent care, and I will give you enough money to buy, equip and maintain a house large enough to give shelter for up to twenty such, where they may be schooled and cared for until they are old enough to make their own way in the world.’
‘Dare I believe that you mean what you say, sir?’
‘No one,’ Cobie told him, and his voice was deadly, ‘has ever had reason to doubt my word, whether what I promise be good or ill.’
‘I must know your name, sir.’
Cobie considered. He had no wish to tell the Captain the one by which high society knew him, but he had never hesitated to use another when it seemed more profitable, or safer, to do so. He did so now.
