Beside him, Winn felt Callie draw back as if she’d been struck. Clearly, she recognized him.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“We have some questions regarding a child left in your care,” Winn stated.
“I’m afraid I have nothing to say on the matt—”
Callie lifted her chin. “You do have something to say on the matter. I was the child in question and I will not be put off. Now, you may invite us into your office to speak or we stand here in the open where all your inmates can get a good look at you.”
The man’s face paled. Immediately, he stepped back. It was more out of shock than invitation, but Winn was willing to take any advantage they could get. Pushing into the office, past the stick figure of a man, he kept his hand tight on Callie’s and drew her inside, as well.
After blustering for a moment, the man quickly closed the door and began setting all the locks and bolts. “It pays to be cautious,” he said by way of explanation. “After what the peasants did in France, well… I’m cautious of rioting.”
“Perhaps if you offered more than a thimbleful of gruel and a sliver of moldy bread, their full bellies would do what all the locks in England will not,” Callie stated coolly.
The man stiffened, his spine going poker straight. “We provide as we are able, Miss.”
“St. James,” she said softly. “How sad it is the only name I have is the one granted me by this abominable place.”
“What is it that you want?” he asked, moving toward his desk.
Winn noted there was a tray on his desk, laden with meat and cheese, bread, a pot of tea. There was more food on it than most of the poor souls in that yard had seen in a week. It was little wonder he kept his door locked and barred. “This woman was left at the workhouse as an infant and given into the care of a vicar—”
“Vicar Albertson. He placed me with a foster family, Chambers,” Callie filled in. “And when they died, the vicar returned me here.”
“Yes, Miss St. James,” the superintendent said. “I’m aware of who you are.”
“Good,” Winn said. “We need to know everything about the day she came here.”
“Well, certainly she can tell you all of that,” the man said dismissively.
“Not when she was returned here… when she was left here the first time as a babe,” Winn stated. He was fairly certain the man knew precisely what they had meant. He was simply stalling and that meant he knew something of import.
“I couldn’t possibly remember so long ago.”
Winn walked over to the door and carefully flipped back one bolt. “For every minute you delay answering, I will unlock one more. And when the last one is freed, I will personally hold this door open while every person in that yard is invited to come up here and help themselves to what remains of your meal. I imagine that when those poor souls see how you are dining versus what is served to them—”
“We found her in a basket outside the gate,” the man said in a rush, the words tumbling one over another. “Don’t unlock that door! Please! I beg of you!”
“What else?” Winn demanded, his hand hovering over the next lock. The little man had no hope of overpowering him. It was a fact everyone in that room was aware of.
“There was a note in the basket. We were asked to take the child to the Lampton Theater at Drury Lane and give her into the care of a woman named Eliza. That is all. I swear to you! That is all.”
“But you didn’t do that, did you?” Callie asked.
“The vicar said a couple would take the child on! It was his sister and her husband! He said it would be a better life for a child than some loose woman who trod the boards,” the superintendent said, all but wailing.
“My father was alive then. That loose woman at the theater would have taken me to my father,” Callie whispered. “My life might have been entirely different but for selfish, judgmental hypocrites such as you and the good vicar!”
The superintendent found some courage then and shouted back at her, “He’d have tossed you out in the street like every other bastard and you’d have been back here… assuming you lived long enough!”
Winn was away from the door in an instant, lifting the odious little man by his waistcoat and slamming