“An arrowhead,” Kendra said, tugging off her gloves.
The Duke nodded, his gaze on the stone. “We have found our own arrowheads from primitive men, but to think this simple stone was plucked from the earth and fashioned into a weapon by a noble savage as a way to feed and protect his family . . . it is quite remarkable, really.”
Kendra handed the waiting maid her pelisse, gloves, and bonnet. “You got an arrowhead. I got a tongue.”
“Yes. Wait. Pardon?” The Duke glanced at her sharply. “Is this a joke?” Then comprehension flashed in his grayish blue eyes, and he stared at her in shock. “Good God, you are not saying Sir Giles’s tongue?”
“The household has been in quite an uproar, Your Grace,” Harding said as he took the Duke’s greatcoat, folding it over his arm. His tone was grave as he flicked a brief, accusatory look at Kendra. “Her ladyship is in a terrible state.”
“Good God,” the Duke said again. “Where . . . is it?”
Alec said, “We took it to Dr. Munroe and left it with him.”
Aldridge nodded. “I suppose that was wise. But what does it mean?” Then he shook his head. “Forgive me, this is not a discussion to be had in the middle of the entrance hall. Harding, send up a tea tray—and coffee—to my study.”
They were near the stairs when someone knocked at the door. Harding, who’d been on his way to the kitchens, immediately swung around to answer it. “Mr. Kelly, sir,” he announced, and stepped aside to allow the Bow Street Runner to come inside.
Harding made an effort to school his features into impassivity, but he couldn’t quite conceal the look of resignation on his face. Kendra knew that Bow Street Runners and severed tongues had never been the norm, until she’d come into their lives.
Sam’s eyebrows went up as he surveyed everyone standing in the entrance hall. He must have seen something on their faces, because his golden gaze narrowed into a flat cop stare. “What’s happened? What’s amiss?”
“Let’s make ourselves comfortable in the study,” the Duke said, glancing at Kendra. “I have a feeling this might be a long story.”
It wasn’t that long of a story, but Kendra did have to pause a time or two for the Duke and even Sam to absorb their shock.
“God’s teeth,” Sam muttered, shaking his head when Kendra had finished. He looked at her and asked, “Why would the fiend send you such a thing?”
“Muldoon—we met Muldoon at Dr. Munroe’s—thought the killer was sending me a warning, that he’s nervous about the investigation.”
Sam pursed his lips. “Aye, seems that way, lass.”
“Then I’m missing something,” she murmured. She lifted the cup she held, her gaze on the slate board as she took a swallow of coffee. The notes were starting to look like hieroglyphic script, and she didn’t have the Rosetta stone. She looked at Sam. “Did you speak to Holbrooke’s former maid?”
“Aye, I did. She’s working as a barmaid for the brother of her sister’s husband in Chatham Square. The lass wasn’t as disgruntled about her dismissal as I thought she’d be.”
Kendra asked, “Was she forthcoming?”
“Aye. Didn’t believe Mr. Holbrooke could have killed his da at first, but then she seemed ter think on it, and reckoned it wasn’t such a peculiar idea, after all. Said that he’d mentioned it, but it was more of a wish than a plan.”
“Wait a moment.” The Duke lifted his hand, appearing to be shocked. “You are saying that Mr. Holbrooke actually voiced a desire to have his father murdered?”
“It would seem so,” said Sam. “Or at least wished him ter conveniently cock up his toes.”
“Dysfunctional family,” Kendra murmured. “Wishing something and actually doing it are two very different things. Go on, Mr. Kelly.”
“Well, I asked if she’d notice Sir Giles acting strange or preoccupied before she’d been dismissed.”
“And?”
“And aye, she’d noticed that he’d been preoccupied. Said the wee lass—Ruth—noticed it, as well, and said the most peculiar thing. Ruth said that her da was anxious about ghosts.”
“Ghosts?” The Duke’s brows shot up. “Whatever can she mean? It couldn’t possibly be taken literally.”
Kendra said, “I think Ruth takes a lot of things literally. Sir Giles must have said something to her to give her that impression. She asked me if I believed in ghosts too.”
“I don’t understand. Sir Giles thought he was being haunted?”
“Not necessarily. Ruth may have taken the words literally, but that doesn’t mean Sir Giles meant them that way.” Kendra let her gaze travel to the slate board. “I wonder if there’s any way that I can talk to Ruth alone.”
“You want to quiz the little girl?” Rebecca asked.
“I’d like to hear what she has to say.”
Sam rubbed his chin. “I found the lads in the Holbrooke stable ter be a friendly sort when I asked after Betty. If the lass has a routine outside of the house, they might tell me.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if her nanny takes her to the park for outings,” Rebecca said.
Kendra glanced at the window. It might have been her imagination, but she thought she saw a couple of raindrops fall past. Damn. “She won’t be taking Ruth to the park if the weather gets worse.”
“Not necessarily,” Rebecca said. “Many doctors encourage children to participate in outdoor activities in such weather, as cold air is invigorating for the body, and excellent for young lungs.”
Sam said, “I’ll make inquiries. But there’s something else. The maid didn’t think Sir Giles was worried about ghosts.” He hesitated, looking at Kendra. “Betty thought Sir Giles might’ve been concerned about a woman. Magdalena. She came across Sir Giles burning a letter from her.”
“Magdalena?” Kendra echoed with interest. “Who’s she?”
Sam scratched the side of his nose. “I reckon she was someone he didn’t want Lady Holbrooke ter know about, which is why he burnt her letter.”
“This woman might not have anything to do with Sir Giles’s murder,” Alec pointed out. “It could be about another matter entirely.”
“Aye. But Betty thought this happened right around the time Sir Giles began ter be more troubled.”
“Alec might be right,” Kendra acknowledged, “but we need to follow up on that anyway.” She thought about how too many leads were dismissed because they didn’t look like they were connected to the crime, only to turn out to be something that cracked the case. Hindsight could be an embarrassing bitch, often involving a reporter shoving a microphone in your face asking why no one had considered following the lead from the beginning.
Her gaze drifted back to the slate board. “Magdalena. Is it just a coincidence that Evert Larson died in Spain, and the woman who wrote to Sir Giles has a Spanish name?” she wondered softly. “Or is it another connection?”
31
Ella Browne’s gait had been much steadier two hours and twelve customers ago. For every gentleman that she’d taken into the alley behind the Bell & Swan, she’d rewarded herself with a shot of gin. Although her mind was now soaked in a comfortable golden haze, on some level she knew that she should be squirreling away a few of the coins she’d earned so that she could rent her own room rather than be forced to share with Peggy and Esther. Not that she minded sharing, but it meant that once a week they drew lots for who could use the room to entertain. This was not Ella’s night.
If she could only save enough blunt, she’d have the warmth and comfort of a bed for the coves who came looking for whores on Haymarket Street. But Ella had been servicing the bucks for three years now, and couldn’t resist the sweet temptation of gin. The Quakers and likeminded folk called it the blue ruin. Ella considered it an alchemist potion, for a shot of gin had the power to chase away dark memories from long ago and transform her present into something that shimmered in a most pleasant way. When Ella was sober—a state that was growing less and less frequent these days—the world was an ugly, br
utal place. Was it any wonder that she sought out a better reality with the sweet elixir?
Now she wove unsteadily through the tables at the Bell & Swan, ignoring the stray hands that slapped and groped at her along the way. She smiled mistily at the burly man behind the tap, tossing down her latest coin. “’Ere ye go, George. One more, if ye please.”
He snorted. Ella preferred to think the sound was jovial rather than contemptuous. She braced her hands, encased in fingerless gloves, on the bar, and leaned forward. A mistake, she realized, when the world tilted madly around her. “Gor,” she muttered, pushing herself upright and nearly falling over. She caught herself, and for some reason, her situation struck her as uproariously funny, and she almost tipped over again, laughing.
“Ye’re as drunk as an emperor, Ella,” George said, taking the cork out of the bottle.
“Nay. Only drunk as a lord,” she chuckled good-naturedly.
“Speakin’ of lords.” He splashed gin into a glass and pushed it toward her. “There’s a couple o’ swells over there, if ye care for more business. Selena’s already got her hooks into one, but the other . . .”
Ella grabbed the glass as she turned to look in the direction George had indicated. Her eyesight had become a little blurry, but she spotted Selena’s golden curls. The whore was at a table with two gentlemen, sitting on one of the cove’s laps, an arm looped around his neck, a hand caressing him beneath his greatcoat and jacket. Her other hand was free to lift her glass of gin. Ella narrowed her eyes at the other gentleman. Gad, what was on his face?
“Bleeding ’ell,” she muttered to George as she identified the side whiskers. “Thought a couple o’ rats crawled up on ’is face.”
George laughed.
Ella tossed back the gin and slammed down the glass. Straightening the velvet bonnet that she wore, she put as much swing into her hips as she dared given her inebriated state, strolling over to the gentleman with the puffy whiskers. “’Ere now, gov’ner, it looks like yer friend is ’aving all the fun. Do ye wanna bit o’ pleasure?”
The gentleman holding Selena grinned over at his friend. “Have a bit of fun, Cross,” he urged. “You’ve been blue-deviled all evening.”
“Aye,” Selena joined in. “Go off wit ye, sir! Ella will show ye a good time. Won’t ye, Ella?”
“Aye, that I will,” she assured him, and slid her hand flirtatiously along his shoulder. “C’mon, love. I’ll make it worth yer while, I will.”
The man named Cross ran his eyes over her. Ella knew she wasn’t a diamond of the first water—her red hair and green eyes weren’t fashionable—but apparently the swell didn’t have any complaints, because he shoved himself to his feet and grabbed her arm. “Where’s your room?” he asked, yanking her close enough to smell the brandy on his breath.
“Ah, now, as ter that . . .” She allowed her fingers to toy with his cravat. “We can go out back.”
His brows twitched together. “It’s cold out!”
“We’ll keep each other warm,” she promised, and slid her hand down, intertwining her fingers with his to tug him to the door. She didn’t mention that she didn’t expect their coupling to take very long.
“C’mon,” she said when he hesitated outside the door, squinting into the swampy fog that had rolled in from the Thames. At least the sprinkling rain had stopped. Lamps had been lit along the street, their glow muted by the mist.
Fearing the loss of the coin, Ella pressed herself against the gent and kissed him. Just when he started to respond, she pulled back with a breathless laugh. “C’mon, love,” she said, smiling at him as she pulled him toward the mouth of the alley. Light spilled from nearby windows, limning the empty crates and barrels shoved against the stone walls, but much of the alley was pitch black.
“This is far enough,” the gent growled, his fingers tightening on hers and yanking her to a stop when she would have led him down farther to her usual spot. Grabbing her roughly by the shoulders, he pushed her against the wall. Despite the layers of her clothing, she could feel the cold emanating from the stones.
Ella huffed out a laugh. “I weren’t gonna rob ye, ye know.”
He gave a grunt, occupied with unbuttoning his pantaloons.
“But this ’ere transaction ain’t free,” she warned.
“I’ll give you a farthing.”
“Bleeding ’ell, w’ot do ye take me fer? A shilling!”
“Fine,” he snapped.
Ella smiled, and reached over, swatting away his fumbling fingers in order to take care of the rest of his buttons. He didn’t waste time, his hands going to her skirts to ruck them up above her knees.
“’Ere now, slow down a bit,” she huffed.
He groaned when she finally freed him, but then gave a harsh cry, jerking against her.
“Oy, gov’ner, if ye’re done without me, ye still pay,” she began, then realized something was wrong. He was pulling away from her, clutching wildly at his throat, gagging and thrashing.
Ella gasped. Panicked, she tried to shove against him, but remained trapped between the wall and his oddly jerking body. The air in her own lungs seemed to evaporate when she saw the shadow looming over the gent. The face . . .
Panic turned to terror. Squealing, she made an attempt to escape by diving to the side, but her foot caught in her skirts and she went crashing down, her hip hitting the pavement with an agonizing crack. The coppery tang of blood filled her mouth, but the pain from her bitten tongue barely registered. She was already scrambling to her feet, her heart hammering so loudly that it roared in her ears.
A scream tore out of her as she exploded out of the alley. She kept screaming long after she ran through the doors of the Bell & Swan.
32
Kendra stared down at the sprawled body of Lord Eliot Cross in the gloom of early morning. At least half a dozen men from the tavern had crowded into the alley, many of them holding hissing torches that cast a golden light across the dead man. Beyond the press of men, fog and darkness swirled.
“He was found exactly like this? No one moved him?” she asked.
“Nay. No one touched ’im,” one of the men said from behind her.
Kendra heard the revulsion in the man’s voice. Understandable, she supposed. The viscount wasn’t looking so good. In the flickering light, she could see that his eyes were open, reddened from petechiae and glassy with death. His features were swollen, his mouth open. His tongue would probably have protruded, but it had been cut out.
Kendra continued her visual inspection of the body. Cross wore a greatcoat, jacket, waistcoat, pantaloons, and boots. The cravat was torn. She imagined the killer standing behind him, looping the hemp rope around Cross’s throat before yanking tight. Like Sir Giles, he would have clawed at his throat, ripping his cravat, scratching at his own skin before losing consciousness. Kendra noticed the front flap of Cross’s pantaloons was unbuttoned. No need to guess at what he’d been doing in the alley; the traumatized sex worker he’d been with was inside the Bell & Swan. Kendra’s eyes shifted to the waistcoat and shirt, where the fabric had been cut, the two sections pulled together so they overlapped, the material slightly askew. Interesting.
“They ain’t laid a finger on him,” Sam added quietly.
The Bow Street Runner was standing on one side of her, holding a lantern; on the other side was the Duke. She knew the they Sam referred to was George Bell, the burly owner of the Bell & Swan, the first watchman who had been called to the scene, and the constable who’d been called after that. The remaining spectators, mostly Bell & Swan customers, were roughly dressed men. Kendra had a feeling there’d been more people before she and the Duke had arrived, but watching a dead man wasn’t all that entertaining, and the crowd had thinned considerably.
The constable who’d been summoned by the watchman read the Morning Chronicle, and thought it was a strange enough coincidence to have another man garroted with his tongue cut out that he’d sent word to Sam. While Sam admitted that he’d hesitated t
o contact them given the lateness of the hour—nearly two A.M.—he’d finally done so, knowing Kendra’s penchant for seeing the crime scene with the body still in it. Sam had also sent for Ethan Munroe, but the doctor had yet to arrive.
Kendra squatted down for a closer look. “Can we get more light here?”
She heard movement, and then someone swung a lantern closer. She didn’t realize the Duke had grabbed a nearby lantern until he spoke. “How is that?”
“Yes, that’s good, thank you.” She leaned over, and carefully inserted a gloved finger between the overlapping material of waistcoat and shirt, and flipped open the material to reveal Cross’s thin, pale torso.
“Well, this is new,” she murmured. Someone gasped and there were murmurings from the men close enough to see the body. She ignored them, her attention focused on what appeared to be a large cross carved into the dead man’s flesh, beginning at the base of Cross’s sternum and ending just below his navel. Blood, dark as oil, had seeped out of the wound. Not much, though, given the man’s heart had stopped pumping when the cut had been made.
She said, “I guess the unsub didn’t have time for the invisible ink.”
“In all’s holy, w’ot’s that?” asked a rough voice.
Sam ignored the bystanders. “The killer didn’t have time ter do much at all, on account of Ella Browne. The lass is lucky the fiend didn’t stop her claret as well.”
“The killer obviously has a target, and isn’t interested in killing beyond that target.”
Kendra shoved herself to her feet just as a voice ran out, “Clear the way! Pardon me—clear the way!”
Munroe pushed through the knot of people to where the body was sprawled. He’d already put on his spectacles, and the flames from the lanterns and torches danced in the twin lenses as he assessed the situation. “Your Grace, Miss Donovan. I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here, but I am. Who is this unlucky devil?”
Betrayal in Time Page 26