Well, she could always sell some of the letters, couldn’t she? With the agreement that as soon as they found out the identity of the author, they would share the spoils between them. Or, if Polly found out quickly enough, she might simply buy them back by saying she’d had them translated and Morgan had lied to her and the letters were worthless. Yes, that was what she would do. Sell three of the four now, to get her gin money, then get them back with a lie and figure out who to blackmail with the whole set of four. But who to convince to buy them in the first place?
It must be someone as desperate for money as herself, to buy into the scheme. But it couldn’t be anyone like an ordinary pawn broker. No, it had to be someone she could trust, someone who would trust her. That left one of a few friends she had made on the streets. Which meant she wouldn’t be able to get much up front. But then, Polly didn’t need much right now, just enough to buy herself a few glasses of gin and a bed for a night or two. She could always get the letters back the moment she had money from her next paying customer, if it came to that.
The decision as to which of her friends to approach was made for her when Polly saw Annie Chapman walking down Whitechapel Road. Polly broke into a broad smile. Annie Chapman was a prostitute, same as herself, and certainly needed money. Dark Annie ought to buy into a blackmail scheme, all right. Annie was seriously ill, although to look at her, a body wouldn’t guess it. But she was dying slowly of a lung and brain ailment which had put her into workhouse infirmaries occasionally and siphoned much of what she earned on the streets for medicines.