KAT, after having been briefed by Benn, questions the girls.
They are more relaxed with her; some even grow gossipy. She chats with the doorman, too.
What she learns:
No one
actually saw the late night arson actually take place.
The doorman was dealing with a drunkard in the lobby, at the time of the fire. He heard footfalls of someone running, but when he looked, smoke blocked a clear view of whomever that was. Maybe there was a cape or cloak?
A doxy recalls a man in a drab cloak and wide-brimmed hat hanging around near the building front last night, an hour or so before the arson--but she didn't get a good look at him.
All the girls are spooked, some worse than others. Word of the murders of Anabelle and Bernadette has reached them
Almost all the girls working here knew both women. Both victims had been whores at the Lorelei until recently. One quit to be a seamstress--that was Anabelle. She had met a young man, and some of the girls think he'd gotten her with child. Bernadette was fired for stealing from a client.
Firings and resignations are not commonplace, the harlots all agree. Madam Sophie treats her girls fairly and protects them from violent clients. She pays a leech to come in monthly to check for disease, and last year she helped a girl who'd become pregnant place her baby in an orphanage run by the Ezrans.
Besides Anabelle quitting and Bernadette being dismissed, the only worker to leave the Lorelei this year was Ettiene Saimpt-Loup, a young man who worked as a hairdresser, make-up artist, and perfumer for the brothel. All the girls knew him, though none knew him well. He was quiet and unassuming. Read a lot.
He just stopped coming to work about two weeks ago.
Nobody knows where he is now.
The interviews run long. Kat's not finished until well after luncheon.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)