Breathless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 2): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

  He nodded his greeting, dismissing me summarily. I should not have been so relieved.

  “She looks like your girl,” he said to Andrew. “Dirty cloak. Travel worn and muck smeared. Nice dunnage beneath.”

  “Well made?” Andrew enquired.

  “Fine stitching, top notch material, and petticoats a plenty.”

  “So, no chance of her being a worker?” Andrew stared up at the workhouse; I followed his line of sight, noting several shadowed faces peering out of the grimy windows.

  “Not a chance,” the superintendent agreed. “At first, we thought she was a doxy. What with the state of her outerwear. But on closer inspection, she’s from a fine home. Pale skin. Clean fingernails. Shining hair.”

  “And yet she finds herself in Lambeth,” Andrew said solemnly.

  “Sooner or later, they cross the river and end up here.”

  “Not our girl,” Andrew said sternly.

  “No, I guess not.” The superintendent studied Andrew for a suspended moment, and then said, “Shall we?” Indicating the sheet-shrouded woman.

  Andrew turned toward me, his lips parted as if to speak.

  “Thank you, Superintendent Cox,” I said. “Do lead on. We mustn’t delay.”

  “Right you are, Doctor,” he said chirpily, turning on his heel and walking toward where the body was hidden.

  Andrew was a silent tower beside me, his unease an almost physical thing to bear. We walked down the side of the building, passing darkened windows and poorly maintained flowerbeds, and a stone plaque given pride of place on the corner of the main wing.

  I hesitated. My eyes drawn to the foundation stone. Lured to the words chiseled into the tablet.

  THIS STONE WAS LAID

  ON THE 3RD OF APRIL 1871, BY

  JOHN TEMPEST, ESQ

  CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF GUARDIANS

  I stopped. Andrew halted beside me. Our eyes glued to the name inscribed on the side of the workhouse.

  “Damnation,” Andrew muttered. “Must that family be connected to everything?”

  I spun toward him. He grimaced.

  Just what the dickens had he discovered about Henry?

  And why had he not divulged any of it to me?

  My eyes met his. His flicked toward the sheets.

  I let my anger go, but held onto my dignity. It was all I had left as I rounded the edge of the barrier and faced my worst nightmare become reality.

  It Is True

  Inspector Kelly

  The woman was dressed in an old worn cloak; the state of it in some disrepair. Beneath the dark and grimy garment, however, was a beautifully tailored dress.

  The murderer was playing with us because this girl was not Wilhelmina.

  Anna let out a wretched breath of air. It tore at my insides. She closed her eyes briefly, and then slowly opened them, assessing the scene before her. She’d donned her physician’s façade, but the minutes prior to this moment had been costly.

  She wore her anguish on her face, in her storm grey eyes. It damn near broke me.

  “Presents in the same manner as previous victims,” Cox announced. “But from your lack of reaction, I am guessing this is not your missing person.”

  “You’d be correct,” I offered, studying the position of the body in relation to the windows on the workhouse. “At what time was she found?”

  Cox hesitated, perhaps trying to decide if I warranted such information, considering my tie to the crime was now severed. He rolled his thick neck on his broad shoulders and huffed through wide nostrils. But the decision had been made as he answered.

  “Midday.”

  “By a worker?”

  “The superintendent sick-nurse on completing her morning rounds of the infirmary.”

  “Through one of these windows?” I asked, nodding toward those that looked over the small, overgrown courtyard we were in.

  “Yes. She confirmed upon our arrival that the girl is unknown to her. Our physician has estimated time of death at approximately ten this morning. She is fresh.”

  “But she did not die here,” Anna said, from her crouch beside the victim.

  “What makes you say that, Doctor?” Cox asked, clearly disgruntled Anna had discovered something his surgeon perhaps had not.

  “Lividity, sir,” she said succinctly. “The corpse was upright when it expired. “See here.” She pulled back the cloak to reveal the wrists and hands of the woman. “The bluish colour is indicative of pooled blood upon death.” She moved to the feet. “Here also indicates a pooling perimortem. As a corpse is unlikely to be standing at the time of death, I’d hazard a guess you will also find pooling in her buttocks, lower back and lower abdomen. Indication she was sitting, legs lowered, arms below the level of her heart, at the moment she expired.”

  “Eating a meal laced with strychnine, perhaps?” I enquired.

  Anna shifted her observation to the deceased’s face.

  “Cyanosis. Trismus. Petechiae. Risus sardonicus. Evidence of emesis.”

  “In English, Doctor.”

  “Chemical asphyxiation, Superintendent. The cyanosis, or blue jaundice, and the petechiae, or spotting on the skin, indicates a lack of oxygen. The trismus, or lockjaw, along with the risus sardonicus, or rictus grin, add weight to a chemical induced paralysis resulting in asphyxia. In particular, these are signs of strychnine poisoning. But you already knew that.”

  “I did.” He’d been testing her. I bristled. Anna simply smiled; a benign almost bored smile.

  “Did I pass?” she asked sweetly.

  “Humph,” the curmudgeon replied.

  “That makes how many now?” I enquired, drawing his attention away from Anna.

  “Five that we are aware of. Six if you count the one that got away.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re aware of all of his victims, Superintendent,” Anna announced, standing to full height again and twirling her closed parasol in her hands. “This woman has been staged for you to find.”

  “The others were not.”

  “Yes, well, he likes his audience now, does he not?” Anna looked at the name etched on the foundation stone, her shoulders shuddering ever so slightly.

  Cox scrubbed at his scraggly beard. “He didn't shift the others.”

  “No?” I pressed. Any information we could gain could be essential. And Cox was in a sharing mood, perhaps impressed with Anna’s swift assessment.

  “Ellen Donworth died in her bed and was discovered there. Likewise Matilda Clover, Alice Marsh and Emma Shrivell.”

  “In their own beds,” I said, appalled.

  “That does not mean they ingested the lethal dose at their place of death,” Anna argued.

  “No,” I agreed. I was well aware that death by strychnine could take time and deliver much agony. I turned to look at Cox. “You said one got away?”

  “Yes, a doxy by the name of Lou Harvey.”

  “How did she thwart our killer?”

  “Our killer, Inspector?”

  “I am here, am I not?”

  “You claiming Lambeth as your own now, too?”

  “I claim all of London, sir. As, I am sure, do you.”

  He grumbled something under his breath, and for a moment I thought he would not divulge further evidence. But Cox was an experienced policeman; one who had seen the darker side of London Town for many a year. He knew when he had met his match. And five deaths, with no end in sight, was cause enough to explore every avenue.

  We were merely another avenue to the seasoned detective.

  “He slipped her two pills, and she made as if to take them, only to throw them in the Thames when he was not looking.”

  “Male?” Anna asked, leaning closer. Was that concern for Henry Tempest I saw in her eyes?

  “Yes, Doctor. We have a description, and all. Middle aged, perhaps in his late thirties, early forties. Well-to-do. Educated-like, the chit said. Bespectacled with a magnificent mustachio. Carried himself with confidence befitting a gentleman.�
�

  Anna paled slightly. He could have been describing Henry Tempest.

  “Tablet form,” Anna mused; clutching a lifeline? “It would take someone with knowledge of medicine in order to extract the toxin from the plant and reproduce it in a pill.”

  “He could have just bought it,” Cox provided. I could almost see Anna wilt.

  Henry Tempest was no medical aficionado.

  But then again, his sister was.

  “The plant,” I said.

  “Strychnos nux-vomica,” Anna provided, wearing her professional face as if a mask.

  “Not native to England,” I said carefully.

  Anna shook her head, but would not look at me. “No, Inspector,” she agreed, voice subdued. “You’ll find the likes, most predominantly, in the Orient.”

  “Such as the Dutch East Indies.”

  She did look at me then, but I could not decipher what the look in her eyes meant. Wariness? Weariness? Confusion?

  “What’s this about the Dutch East Indies, then?” Cox demanded.

  “Merely a line of enquiry I am following pertaining to another matter,” I smoothly supplied.

  At least, I thought the move smooth until Cox harrumphed.

  “I told you before, Inspector, I’ll tell you again: the sharing of information needs to be a two-way street.”

  “At this point and time, Superintendent, it would only muddy the waters. Your killer is based in England, not the Orient. I suggest you enquire with local apothecaries as to the availability of strychnine in tablet form.”

  “Do not presume to tell me how to do my job, sir.”

  “I would do no such thing.”

  “The Dutch East Indies,” he snapped.

  “Irrelevant,” I replied coolly.

  “Gentlemen,” Anna said, drawing both our attentions. “Our Oriental line of enquiry leads to a woman.” What? “Your killer, Superintendent, has been described as a man.”

  “Is this true, Kelly?” Cox demanded.

  I looked to Anna. She met my gaze; grey eyes steady.

  She knew something. Something she hadn’t seen fit to divulge to me.

  An angry flush washed through my body, flaming my cheeks.

  But I said calmly, my attention still fixed on Anna, “Yes. It is true. We hunt a female.”

  Or, perhaps, it was a female who hunted us.

  You Don’t Say?

  Anna

  The silence in the hansom was stifling. I had to battle not to shift on my seat, or draw attention to the perspiration that coated my brow. My gloveless hands were a welcome respite, but my corset proved itself almost too much.

  Andrew stared stoically out of the window as the carriage rolled across Westminster Bridge. The gentle clop of the horse’s hooves was drowned out by the raucous shouting of drivers as they passed one another. The newly rebuilt Palace of Westminster garnered much of his attention, but I was certain a good portion was still back at the workhouse.

  The relief I should have been feeling that the woman poisoned was not Wilhelmina was absent. Instead, I couldn’t help thinking we were being corralled, herded into a forbidden pasture. Toyed with yet again.

  The workhouse had been chosen with care, the placement of the body so near the foundation stone, and Henry’s father’s name, purposeful. The poisoner, a male by all accounts, was tempting us with little snippets of information.

  Did he wish to be caught?

  Was it Henry?

  He had been at The Blind Beggar on Whitechapel Road. Why? Following up on the missing orphans? It all connected, I was sure. But how? The Lambeth murders. The stolen children. What of the Old Bailey?

  “What, pray tell,” I said into the silence, “did you discover at the Bailey, Inspector? And where is Sergeant Blackmore, for that matter?”

  “The more pressing question, Doctor, is how are you aware the writer of your letters is female?”

  Andrew didn't sound in the least pleased with this discovery.

  “I should have thought you’d be delighted that progress on that front has been made.”

  “Has it? You know as well as I that the letter, although somewhat disparate from my own, is connected in some way to Eliza May.”

  I was stunned he’d spoken so freely of his wife. In fact, the mention of her name left me reeling. Was the woman I’d met at Dorothy’s Andrew’s duplicitous spouse? Could I have unwittingly met my arch nemesis? And if so, why the false identity?

  Mary Moriarty. I scoffed.

  “What is so funny?” Andrew demanded, turning his attention away from the window and blasting me with his fierce gaze.

  Having Andrew Kelly’s full focus was enough to make any reasonable woman quail. I am not reasonable by anyone’s estimate.

  I glared back at him and said, “This. Everything. The mess that we seem to be tangled within.”

  “And this amuses you?”

  “In a how-much-worse-can-this-possibly-get way.”

  His lips twitched. “Your sense of humour, as always, is charming.”

  I was quite certain that was a euphemism of some description.

  “Answer the question,” he said softly.

  I let a slow breath of air out. Andrew speaking softly was not a sign of concession. More likely a sign of something far more explosive to come.

  In a fit of immaturity, I demanded, “I asked my question first, Inspector.”

  His jaw flexed where I assumed he was grinding his teeth. I almost warned him that was a bad habit. Thankfully, I heeded the stern look to his turbulent gaze and said nothing.

  “Sergeant Blackmore is investigating Newgate Gaol; the last known location of the missing children.”

  My breath caught, my heart thundering. Drowning out the steady clip of our horse’s hooves beneath the carriage.

  “Was Mina with them?”

  Andrew’s face softened slightly. “It is uncertain. However, females were accounted for in the number.”

  “Where did they go?”

  He shook his head. “I am hopeful Sergeant Blackmore can uncover that in due course.”

  The brief flash of concern that crossed his face was alarming, but he soon reverted to type and scowled down at me.

  “Your turn,” he said succinctly. “The Dutch East Indies.”

  “You have yet to divulge your results at the Old Bailey.”

  “Anna, if you test me any further on this, I will turn you over my knee. Answer the damn question!”

  I jumped. His voice had been rather loud in the confines of the carriage. Bristling, I opened my mouth to argue when he reached across the seat and gripped my hand. His fingers tightened. His breath too fast to count the respirations.

  “Please, Anna,” he urged. “Can you not see why I am concerned?”

  Oh, bother. He, too, thought the letters were from his wife.

  I swallowed, allowing myself a moment’s respite through the touch of his hand in mine, and then said, “I was confronted by a shadowed woman at The Dorothy Restaurant. Cornered, one might say. I never saw her face,” I rushed to add. “And did not recognise her voice.”

  “Why did you not see her face?” Andrew’s words were forced through gritted teeth, his jaw made of marble.

  “She approached from behind me in a darkened room.” This next admission would not go down well, I feared. “She threatened me with a pistol, should I turn around and attempt to identify her.”

  Silence, and then slowly, darkly, “A pistol.”

  I nodded my head and bit my lower lip. The action reminded me of my father and his failed attempts to break me of the habit. I released the flesh and sat still, waiting Andrew’s judgement.

  “Why would she hide herself?” he mused.

  “So that I may not discover her?” I offered, uncertainly.

  He shook his head. “I would not have shared her image with you,” he said. “She would know this. My need to distance myself from my past has meant I no longer possess any likeness of her.”

  �
��Then perhaps it is not your…”

  “Wife? Come, Anna. How much more proof do you need?”

  “You said yourself that hiding her visage makes little sense.”

  “Unless she is promenading the streets of London for all to see and expects to chance upon yourself.”

  “And what of you? Would she risk chancing upon you?”

  “Mayhap, she does not know I am here.”

  I looked to his breast pocket; his hand lifted and pressed against the letter I knew to be there.

  “Besides,” I said before he could comment further. “She introduced herself as Mary.”

  “Mary?”

  “For MM.”

  “And the second M?”

  I grimaced. “Moriarty.” It sounded so absurd.

  “Mary Moriarty?”

  “Indeed. Perhaps Arthur Conan Doyle is involved, as well.”

  “Do not jest, Anna. Professor Moriarty is known for his master criminal mind. A rather fitting likeness of Eliza.”

  I frowned, staring down at our joined hands. My heart beat like a flailing bird.

  A rather fitting analogy considering the nightingale.

  “And the Old Bailey?” I asked, wanting desperately to turn the conversation elsewhere. Away from criminal wives and back to criminal abductions.

  “Yes,” Andrew said, straightening. “Would you care to speculate as to who I ran into there?”

  Oh, dear. I was sure; I did not want to know.

  “No guesses?” Andrew pressed. “Not even a one?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why, your old friend, Dr Cassidy.” Andrew leant forward and offered me a tooth-filled smile. “Mr Henry Tempest, Esquire.”

  If he expected me to be shocked, he was sorely disappointed. I was beginning to think Henry was neck deep in whatever had befallen London since I arrived.

  A bitter, acrid taste filled my mouth. Poor Emily.

  “Well,” I said into the strained silence. “That does sound rather fitting.”

  “Fitting?” Andrew did not look amused in the slightest.

  “Considering I spotted him Whitechapel.”

  He dropped my hand, his eyes wide, his nostrils flaring, a tick appearing along the edge of his jaw.