“Ah, come on, ma,” Margo said loudly to Shahdi Feroz, taking her arm, “senile owd git ain’t no use. We’ll catch ‘im, ‘e gots to come ‘ome sometime, ain’t ‘e?”
As soon as they had gained enough distance, Shahdi Feroz cast a curious glance over her shoulder. “How in the world will Annie Chapman slip through that door with seventeen people asleep in the house and nobody hear a thing?”
Margo shot the scholar an intent glance. “Good question. Maybe one of the working girls got tired of having that busybody interfere with using a perfectly suitable business location? One of them could’ve poured lamp oil on the hinges?”
“It’s entirely possible,” Dr. Feroz said thoughtfully. “Pity we haven’t the resources to put twenty-four hour surveillance on that door for the next week. That was quick thinking, by the way,” she added with a brief smile. “When she shouted like that, I very nearly lost my footing. I had no idea what to say. All I could imagine was being placed in jail.” She shivered, leaving Margo to wonder if she’d ever seen the inside of a down-time gaol, or if she just had a vivid imagination. Margo, for one, had no intention of discovering what a Victorian jail cell looked like, certainly not from the inside. She had far too vivid a memory of sixteenth-century Portuguese ones.
“Huh,” she muttered. “When you’re caught stealing the cookies, the only defense is a counterattack with a healthy dose of misdirection.”
Shahdi Feroz smiled. “And were you caught stealing the cookies often, my dear Miss Smith?”