he pavements seemed busier as they made their way back down Calton Hill towards Princes Street. Sarah heard a whistle carried on the wind, and in the middle distance she could see steam rising from the new North Bridge station. The sight of clouds rising from below rather than floating up above was one she might be a long time in getting used to. She had only once travelled on a train and had found the experience noisy and frightening.
Dr Keith was not with them, having remained at Rock House taking lunch with his friends. Sarah had explained that she needed to return to Queen Street and her duties, and expected to be walking back alone, but Raven had announced that he also had matters to attend. Sarah was not sure whether this was true, given Dr Simpson’s on-going self-confinement, and allowed herself a moment of pleasure that Raven had chosen accompanying her over the prospect of what would undoubtedly have been a sumptuous meal in the company of Messrs Hill and Adamson, as well as the remarkable Miss Mann and the formidable Miss Rigby.
However, once they began talking, she realised that perhaps his principal motive was his impatience to impart Miss Rigby’s revelation.
‘The Reverend Grissom using prostitutes?’ Sarah asked. She kept her voice low, wary as much of passing pedestrians as of being overheard by someone at an open window. ‘Surely she must have been mistaken?’
‘She was adamant that he is well known to the pinch-cocks of Newhaven and Leith. Is it so hard to believe?’
Sarah was conscious of an innate sense of duty driving her to question it, and she wondered why this should be so. What made a minister’s word or reputation seem beyond question? It was possible that Miss Rigby might be mistaken or even motivated by malice (she certainly had not spoken with much reverence for the ‘fat martyrs’, as she described them), but Sarah could not envisage the woman making such a serious accusation without having a profound conviction that it was true.
‘I suppose such a thing is easier for you to believe,’ she replied, which made Raven’s cheeks burn a little.
‘I sorely doubt I was the only student to do so, as much as I doubt Grissom to be the only minister. And as he is connected to the Sheldrake household, I have to ask myself where else he might have spilled his seed.’
Sarah’s voice dropped to barely more than a whisper. ‘Are you suggesting . . .?’
She stopped there, unprepared to even voice the words.
‘When we heard him preach, he seemed intent on blaming women for the temptations to which men succumb. Miss Rigby suggests he has often fallen to such temptations. Grissom is the Sheldrakes’ minister. Rose would have attended his services and I am sure he must have visited the Sheldrakes’ house, as I believe Mr Sheldrake is a benefactor of his new ministry.’
Sarah recalled her impression of an awkward and self-regarding little imp. She would admit that she could imagine him using prostitutes to slake his lust, but housemaids were another matter.
‘What would make Rose want anything to do with him?’ she asked.
‘He is an important man. Status, influence and respect might exert an intoxicating influence on a young woman who has none of those things. And if she found herself pregnant by him, he might find himself in a difficult spot.’
Sarah felt a shudder run through her, as though she might face a terrible reckoning for even entertaining these notions. It was one thing to claim that the Reverend Grissom was a hypocrite, but quite another to suggest him capable of murder.
‘We are looking for a common cause for Rose and Evie’s deaths,’ she reminded him. ‘My conversation with Miss Mann leads me to believe that strychnine might have been responsible for their contorted conditions. She knew someone who died of it and was left similarly twisted. There is nothing that connects Grissom to Evie.’
‘Is it unreasonable to speculate that his appetites took him to the Canongate as well as to Newhaven?’
‘I can accept that complacency might make him think he would not be recognised further afield, but surely he would not go whoring half a mile from his own church?’
‘Such a man might believe himself beyond suspicion. If he was seen entering or leaving a bawdy house, he could claim he was interested in their souls, not their bodies, trying to convince them away from their lives of sin. Nobody would believe the word of a whore over that of a minister.’
Sarah had to concede this point, but in it also lay the reason Grissom would have had nothing to fear from Rose.
‘Nor would they believe the word of a housemaid claiming a man of the Church had got her pregnant.’
‘Unless Grissom feared Rose’s employer might believe her. Why would she lie about something so heinous?’
Sarah failed to suppress a scornful look. ‘Speaking as a housemaid, I find that extraordinarily unlikely. The family would not entertain the scandal. A pregnant housemaid would be embarrassing enough, but an accusation against their reverend minister would be intolerable. No, I consider your hypothesis hopelessly flawed, Mr Raven. Nor have you offered any reason why he would wish to harm Evie.’
Sarah turned to him for a response, but his eyes were looking down Leith Street.
‘Do you even recollect seeing him around Evie’s lodgings?’ she asked.
‘I vaguely recognised his face when we went to the church, but no, I don’t recall seeing him down at that end of the Canongate. I certainly don’t remember seeing him the night I found Evie dead. One of her friends said the only person who visited that night was a woman.’
‘Who was this friend?’
Raven did not answer. Instead he put a hand around Sarah’s waist and pulled her bodily into the darkness of a narrow close. In the work of a second she found herself plucked from the brightness of the street and thrust against the wall in a cramped and dank passage, just beyond where the light spilled in.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she tried to ask but Raven had already clamped a hand across her mouth. She grabbed his arm with one hand, her other pushing his chest, but he was strong and lithe. Physically she was no match for him.
Shock and anger quickly gave in to dread and fear as she wondered what outrage might be inflicted upon her. Was this the real reason he had opted to leave Rock House and accompany her alone? She tried to wriggle free, but Raven’s grip only tightened. She looked desperately into his eyes, which stared back manically, pupils ever widening. Loosening his hold of her with one hand, he put his index finger to his lips. He gestured with his eyes towards the mouth of the close.
Sarah heard male voices approach, one of them rumbling and gruff, the other reedy and nasal. She saw two fellows briefly pass: a rodent-like specimen who looked all the smaller next to the freakish creature alongside. She was allowed only the briefest glimpse as he strode past, due to the speed of his lolloping and awkward gait. He was an ugly and overgrown individual, benighted by some hideous condition that had inconsistently enlarged certain parts of him in the most grotesque manner.
She looked back at Raven as the voices receded, saw the tension in his face lest they turn around again.
She realised that these were the people Raven had been so vigilantly looking out for. Also in that moment, it struck her why he was in their debt, and she felt a little ashamed for not having worked it out before.
Evie had asked him for money, in urgent need. Raven had borrowed it from them though he had no swift means of paying it back; had put himself in danger to help her.
She hardly dared breathe now, her eyes drawn to the scar barely hidden by Raven’s developing beard. She recalled the mess of his face when he first arrived at Queen Street, the deep slash upon a cheek held together by cat-gut, and the bruising upon his body. The men who had inflicted it were mere yards away, still in earshot. She stood perfectly still, perfectly silent, not daring to make a sound until they were sure the danger was truly past.
Long after the footsteps and voices had receded, she and Raven remained motionless, their faces barely inches apart, hardly breathing. The intent look in Raven’s eyes became something else, their gazes locked upon one another. With her hand still pressed upon his chest, Sarah could feel his heartbeat and thought he must be able to hear her own.
She felt unaccustomed stirrings in unaccustomed places. She wanted to feel his lips upon hers, wanted him to pull her closer.
Raven backed away though. Edging to the mouth of the passage, he risked a look along the street. The moment had passed. With the spell broken, Sarah felt a flush of relief that nothing had happened. Nonetheless, as she stepped back into the light, she was trembling from head to toe, and not from fright.