I nodded, and moved to step around him, but his hand came up to stop me. I looked up in surprise.
“You do not have to do this,” he told me. I could see the war raging behind his eyes, between his need for answers and his desire to shield me, shield any woman, from this. “I just . . . I need another’s opinion. And I don’t trust Mr. Paxton’s. And with your knowledge . . .” He hesitated, reluctant to speak of the years of unwilling instruction in anatomy I had received from my husband.
“It’s all right,” I assured him.
He searched my gaze, as if to be certain I wasn’t lying.
“Now, let’s not waste any more time.”
He dropped his hand from my arm and followed me across the path and onto the rough sand beach where the girl’s crumpled form lay.
“We’re certain this is Miss Wallace?”
“Yes. It looks like her portrait. And the man who found her . . .” he nodded back toward the stable hand minding our horses “. . . recognized her.”
I braced myself, trying to prepare for whatever I was about to see. This wasn’t the first corpse I’d seen, I reminded myself. Nor even the first murder victim. It couldn’t be any worse than the last, whose throat had been cut from ear to ear. Fortunately the morning air was crisp, and the brine of the sea had masked most of the stench of decomposition. I took even, shallow breaths and leaned forward to look into the girl’s face. It was flecked with sand and grit, like the rest of her.
“Did you turn her?”
“Yes.”
I allowed my gaze to travel carefully over her body, taking in the state of her hair and clothes, and the gray-white cast to her skin. Her caramel-brown hair was a tangle of snarls, and her clothes were dirty and unkempt. As to be expected, they showed signs of dampness, but she had been lying on the beach for enough hours that the wind had begun to dry them.
“Gage,” I murmured in distress, “this is all wrong.” I shook my head. “If Miss Wallace had been swept out to sea by the current and drowned like Mr. Paxton suggested, she would not have washed up onto the beach here.”
“So she was placed here, either on purpose or because she was killed nearby.”
“And look at her clothes. They’re old and shapeless, and made from very poor quality wool. Miss Wallace would never have worn this.”
“Or the coat,” Gage pointed out. “It’s a man’s.”
I stared at her face, at the rigidity of her expression. “Look at this bruising,” I said, kneeling next to the body. The cool, damp sand shifted under my weight. A large purple contusion had formed on her forehead, and another bruise had blossomed on her left cheekbone. “These were made before death.”
I lifted her hand, finding that the fingers moved far easier than I expected, while her arm was still stiff. “Her nails are broken, chipped, and dirty, her knuckles scraped.”
“So she must have struggled.” I could hear the supposition in his voice as he tried to piece together the facts, but my attention was already on my next discovery.
Pushing up the sleeve of the coat, I sucked in a harsh breath. The skin on her wrist was raw and tattered. Gage crossed to the other side of the body and lifted the other sleeve to reveal the same result.
“She was bound,” he said, stating the obvious. “What about her feet?”
They, too, were damaged from some kind of restraints, though not as severely. I became sickened further by the bruise I found on her calf as I slowly inched her skirt up, and the scrape on her knee, and by the huge purple welts on the insides of her thighs. Unwilling and deeming it unnecessary to see more, I lowered her dress and looked away, taking a moment to compose myself.
I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths of the cool sea air, trying to block out the horrible knowledge filling my head. The briny scent of the sea helped me to swallow some of the acid on my tongue. I forced myself to listen to the cries of the seabirds and the waves lapping at the shore. But when I heard Gage shift impatiently behind me I turned back, aware that our time was running out.
Grateful for the leather covering of my riding gloves, I reached out to unfasten the top half of the buttons on Miss Wallace’s dress and her chemise. Peeling back the edges, I found another bruise and the greenish discoloration on the skin of her abdomen I had been looking for.
“I can tell you she’s been dead for longer than twenty-four hours.”
“You’re certain?”
I nodded, buttoning her back up. “Sir Anthony used to say that he knew he’d gotten a fresh body when the skin of the abdomen had yet to turn green. Although then he often had to contend with the rigor of the corpse.” I lifted the hand, showing him how the fingers bent. “This body has gone past rigor and is returning to pliancy.”
I had hated the “fresh” bodies he made me sketch while he dissected them even more than the others, particularly when I began to realize that many of them weren’t criminals come straight from the gallows. I had felt an uneasy suspicion that my husband, or rather the grave robbers I knew he must have employed, had gotten them by even more nefarious means than their normal scheme of digging up newly buried corpses. When it came to the procurement of the cadavers my late husband used, I had not wanted to know the details. I would not have been able to bear knowing, not without a shadow of a doubt, not when there was almost nothing I could have done about it. My supposed active participation in that process had been one of the most macabre and vicious rumors about me. I was said to have lured young men into being the victims on Sir Anthony’s dissection table.
Gage knew all this, for I had admitted it to him during our investigation at Gairloch, so he didn’t ask now, and I was grateful.
I pushed up the sleeve of the ratty brown coat to look for more bruising and also found the distinctive marks of the spring-loaded lancet used in bloodletting at the inside of her elbow. “She’s been bled. And recently.”
Gage examined her other arm. “From this arm, too.”
One of the images drawn on William’s wall suddenly flashed before my eyes. The one of the man with rivulets of what looked to be water running down his arms. I now felt more certain than ever that they were supposed to be blood.
I re-covered her arm and laid it gently beside her body, considering all of the evidence. “I don’t think she drowned. An autopsy could tell us more. If there’s water in her lungs. But I don’t think we’ll find any.”
He rounded the body and offered me his hand to help me stand. “How did she die, then?”
“I don’t know. She was clearly mishandled and abused, restrained, and almost certainly bled.” I stared down at the girl’s pale face. “Surely the wounds made from a bloodletting done before she went missing would have healed before she died around a day, a day and a half ago.”
“All of those things could still have happened to her, and she still could have drowned,” he pointed out, but I could tell he agreed with my original conclusion.
“Yes, but that still means her body was moved here. The only way she could have drowned and washed ashore here is if the killer chased her into the firth along this stretch of beach and either knocked her unconscious or held her head underwater.” I found my gaze straying toward Banbogle Castle and a chill crept down my spine. “But I rode along this stretch of shore just yesterday afternoon,” I reminded myself as much as Gage. “I would have seen her.”
“Maybe, maybe not, depending on how fast you rode by here and how much attention you were paying to your surroundings.”
I had been so hurt and angry. All I remembered were my riotous emotions and the wind in my face as I urged Dewdrop onward. The thought that I might have ridden past Miss Wallace’s body in the shallows near the shore without noticing made me sick to my stomach. If only I hadn’t let my temper get the best of me maybe I would have been more observant, and better able to say for certain whether or not the body had been in the wate
r just offshore.
“But if it’s any consolation,” Gage told me, correctly reading my horrified expression, “I think you’re correct. Whoever killed her brought her here deliberately to make it look like a drowning. Or, possibly, something worse.”
I was about to ask him if he meant what I thought he did when the sound of approaching horses made me turn back toward the trail. Two horses had emerged from the forest and I was surprised to see Miss Remmington on one of them. She ordered the stable hand to help her down and began striding across the distance between us.
“Is that her?” she yelled.
I looked at Gage in alarm and we moved forward to intercept her.
“Is that her?” she demanded, her voice rising almost hysterically. Her hair was streaming down her back and her eyes were wild.
“Please, Miss Remmington, let’s not . . .”
“No!” she shrieked, jerking away from Gage. “Is that her? Is that Mary?”
I stepped in front of her, wrapping my hands around her upper arms to keep her from moving any closer to the corpse. Her expression was agonized and I could do nothing but tell her the truth. “Yes.”
Her head reared back and then she began to shake it in denial. “No.” She pushed against me, trying to move past, and I pressed back, forcing her to look me in the face.
“Yes,” I repeated gently.
Her bottom lip began to tremble and her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, dearest,” I crooned, not knowing what else to say.
She crumpled before my eyes and Gage was there to help me gather her into my arms, letting her sob wildly on my shoulder. He met my gaze over her head, telling me it was time for me to be on my way.
“Come away from here,” I told Miss Remmington and urged her back toward the horses.
“But . . . but I want to see her,” she choked out.
“No, you don’t,” I assured her, and that only made her cry harder.
Lord Damien stood in the middle of the path gazing helplessly at the girl in my arms.
“Gather the horses’ reins,” I told him. “All except Mr. Gage’s.”
He obeyed and followed us down the path through the forest back toward Dalmay House. I knew Miss Remmington was too upset to sit a horse, and I wanted the opportunity to think. I had underestimated Miss Remmington’s affection for Miss Wallace. Mary Wallace must have been quite a friend to make such a lasting impression on so short an acquaintance, for Miss Remmington did not strike me as overly sentimental.
I hoped Constable Paxton would see reason when Gage spoke with him, but I had a sinking feeling he would not. That Gage had been the first to examine the body would irritate him, and I could see him sticking to his theory that Miss Wallace had been carried away by the tide while trying to cross from Cramond Island just to spite him. Perhaps Mr. Wallace was the man we would have to reason with, though I hated to bother him when he had been dealt such a horrible blow. But surely he would want to know the truth about what had happened to his daughter.
In any case, sanctioned or not, I was not going to stop investigating, and I doubted Gage would be so easily deterred either. The location of Miss Wallace’s corpse suggested one of two things. Either Will had been responsible for her disappearance and death or someone was trying to make it look like he was. And I was not going anywhere until I had the truth, whatever that might be, and no matter how painful. If he was innocent, I owed it to Will. But even if he wasn’t, I now owed it to Miss Wallace and all of the people who had loved her to bring her killer to justice.
About halfway back to Dalmay House, Miss Remmington’s sobs lessened and she began to take herself more in hand. She still sniffled into her handkerchief, but she no longer openly wept. “I introduced her to Lord Dalmay,” she gasped between hiccups.
“I know.”
Her eyes widened. “You knew?”
I nodded, but decided not to reveal my source. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
She frowned, considering her answer. “Because Michael Dalmay seemed so eager to protect his brother. I thought that was what he wished me to do.”
“Because you were worried we would think Lord Dalmay’s acquaintance with her would make him a suspect in her disappearance,” I clarified.
Her face crumpled. “And now he’s killed her, and it’s my fault.”
“Now see here,” I told her sternly, not needing her to presume anything, “we don’t know anything for certain. Mr. Gage and I are investigating the matter, and we plan to get to the bottom of it.”
“But she was found on this beach.”
“And she could have been deposited there by any number of means.”
Miss Remmington’s expression was dubious.
“There are a lot of factors to this investigation you are not privy to. We need to be certain we have the right culprit before any accusations are made.” Her gaze was flat and unreadable, and that made me uneasy, which forced me to press her. “Will you give us a chance to conclude our investigation before you decide who murdered your friend? Can you do that?”
“But you do believe she was murdered?” she asked anxiously.
I hesitated, wondering if I should have left room for doubt. “Yes,” I replied, unable to lie to her.
She sighed. “I suppose that’s better than that stupid constable who believed she was swept out to sea.” She glanced back at me and nodded. “All right. But do it quickly.” Her hands tightened into fists. “I want the man to pay.”
I resisted the urge to nudge the autocratic girl into the patch of bramble bushes on the right side of the path, but only just barely.
* * *
I was seated in the drawing room reading a letter when Gage returned from the firth shore and stormed into the chamber in a towering fury. I watched as he paced up and down the floor and cursed Constable Paxton for a bloody fool, the many capes of his greatcoat snapping out behind him as he pivoted.
“I take it he refused your assistance.”
“The idiot actually threatened to have me brought up on charges for interfering with his investigation.”
I grimaced. “I guess he heard about our visit to Cramond yesterday.”
“Oh, yes. Some helpful biddy passed along that choice bit of information.” He whirled around on the heel of his boot and charged back across the room. “He refused to listen to any of our findings today or yesterday, even about the boat Craggy Donald saw moving away from the island. He said the man wasn’t to be trusted and we should just ignore whatever he told us.”
I scowled. “Did you ask him about the damage he did to Donald’s hut?”
“To be sure, but of course he denied it.”
“Of course.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “So he’s going to rule Miss Wallace’s death a drowning by misadventure?”
“Yes.” He paced the length of the room one more time before planting his hands on the back of a golden wingback chair and leaning over it toward me. It creaked beneath the force of his weight. “Can you believe that man actually accused me of being a ghoul when I suggested he have the local surgeon or someone from the Royal College perform an autopsy to discover if there was water in her lungs?”
I sighed. “I was afraid of that. People do have a fear of dissection. Many still believe it’s an unholy practice, that the soul can’t be resurrected if the body is desecrated.”
“Yes, well, while they worry about that, Miss Wallace’s murderer may very well go free.” He scraped a hand back through his golden hair and with a huff rounded the chair and dropped down onto its cushions. “So that avenue is closed to us, unless you want to go harass her father. I’m sure Mr. Paxton will have gotten there ahead of us, painting our suggestion in the worst possible light, but we could try. Though I loathe asking a grieving father to do such a thing.”
“No. Not when all we wish to discover
is if there is water in his daughter’s lungs. We’re already relatively certain she didn’t drown.”
He nodded and leaned forward with his elbows braced on his knees, staring down at his feet. His hands were spread wide and he kept bouncing the fingertips of one hand off the other in nervous agitation. When he noticed me watching him he nodded to the paper in my lap. “You were reading when I came in.”
I lifted the letter. “It’s from Philip.”
Gage sat straighter in interest.
I opened the sheet of foolscap to look down at the handwriting. “He spoke to Dr. Renshaw, Sir Anthony’s former assistant,” I reminded him.
“What did he say?” From the look in his eyes I knew that wasn’t all he wanted to ask, but he stuck to what was most important. I would have disappointed him on the other anyway, because Philip had said nothing of the man—or whether he had been rough with him—other than to relay his words about Dr. Sloane.
“Apparently he’s familiar with Dr. Sloane’s work.” I arched my eyebrows.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not. He says that Dr. Sloane likes to collect oddities—people with interesting mental afflictions.” I glanced back at the letter, reading from Philip’s notes. “He was dismissed from his position at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and he received disciplinary sanctions from the Royal College of Surgeons because of a series of unorthodox experiments he performed on several of his patients.” I lifted my gaze to meet Gage’s. “Including his daughter.”
He stiffened in surprise. “His daughter?”
I nodded, having felt the same shock upon reading the words. “Apparently she suffered from uncontrollable manias and melancholia, and his experiments began as a way to find a treatment for her.”
“Where is she now?”
I hesitated, feeling a pulse of horror at the whole situation. “She killed herself.”
Gage sank back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair, looking as stunned as I felt.
Mortal Arts (A Lady Darby Mystery) Page 30