of clothes that Jenny Teller had told the police her husband had worn to the clinic, and presumably out of it as well, he was wearing a pair of coveralls and Wellingtons, a flat cap on his head.

“Damn!” the constable said grimly. “Beg pardon, sir, but that’s him. The costermonger. But where’s his clothing?”

“He’s just sold it to someone else. Come on!” Rutledge strode swiftly down the street toward the tea shop. The costermonger looked up, and then his gaze sharpened as he recognized that one of the men bearing down on him was a uniformed constable, the other a sergeant, moving fast in the wake of a man in street clothes.

They could see the changing expressions on his face—alarm, the debate over whether to flee or stay where he was. Outnumbered, he chose to stay, bracing himself as Biggin said, “Good morning.”

Their quarry said nothing.

“I’ve been told that you were seen wearing different clothing earlier in the day,” Biggin went on. “We’d like to have a look at it.”

They could see the man weighing any profit he might have made against trouble with the police. He chose a middle course.

“What’s wrong with an honest man making a living out of old clothes that have come into his possession?” he demanded grudgingly.

“Nothing,” Biggin retorted. “Except they aren’t old, and it’s the gentleman who was once wearing those items that we’re interested in hearing about.”

“I know nothing about him. I found the suit of clothes in a neat pile by the river, just below Tower Bridge. I hung about, to see if anyone was to come along and claim them, and when no one did, I thought I ought not to look a gift horse in the mouth, as the saying goes.”

It was interesting, Rutledge observed, that the costermonger knew precisely which clothing the police were after. They would have been a windfall, worth as much as he might earn in a week’s time selling old clothes and boots and men’s hats. There had been no pretense of ignorance, no denials. It was possible he was telling the truth.

“And where would the items in question be now?” Biggin asked. The costermonger reluctantly answered, “I sold them to a gent in the tea shop. He fancied the cut of them, he said.”

The constable was already reaching for the door latch and disappeared inside the shop. He came out shortly thereafter with a known pickpocket, one Sammy Underwood, a well-spoken man of forty-five, who could pass for a gentleman in Teller’s suit of clothes. Rutledge had seen him at flat races, hobnobbing with rich punters and readily accepted in his pressed castoffs. A better sort of purse to pick there than the casual encounter at a street crossing.

Underwood demanded his own apparel back before he would consent to give up Teller’s clothing. The exchange made, he scuttled off before the police took an interest in his activities.

They spoke to the costermonger for another quarter of an hour, but he refused to change his story, although he claimed that he had not found shoes or hat with the trousers, shirt, and coat.

Sergeant Biggin turned to Rutledge. “A man doesn’t leap into the river wearing his hat and shoes.”

“For all we know, they were taken away before the costermonger found the rest of Teller’s belongings.”

Rutledge made a brief examination of the clothing. The labels had been removed.

The costermonger said quickly, “They were that way when I found them.”

“Yes,” Biggin retorted, “and the moon’s the sun’s daughter.”

“It’s true,” the man exclaimed. “I’ll swear to it, if you like.”

Rutledge tended to believe him, although the sergeant remained dubious. But if it wasn’t the costermonger—then who had taken the time to remove them? Someone intent on throwing dust in the eyes of the police? But if it hadn’t been for the vigilance of a constable, the clothing would have disappeared into the backstreets of East London, never to come to light.

“Ye canna’ find a man sae easily in different clothes,” Hamish pointed out.

To buy a little time, perhaps. Or travel.

In the end, the costermonger lost his sale, and Rutledge, after complimenting the constable for his good eye, left with a box under his arm containing what appeared to be Walter Teller’s clothing.

He went directly to Bond Street, and walked up and down, looking in shop windows. And then he saw what he was after. Grantwell & Sons specialized in dressing men who spent much of their time in the country, and displayed over a handsome chair in the