Later that evening, Sir Henry Lovejoy sat in his parlor, drinking a cup of tea while he listened to Viscount Devlin detail one of the most bleak and profoundly disturbing tales he’d yet to hear.
“God save us,” whispered Lovejoy when the Viscount had finished. “Babies? How could anyone kill innocent babies?”
“Evidently quite easily,” said Devlin.
Setting aside his cup, Lovejoy rose and went to stand at the open window, his gaze on the darkened square below. A warm wind had come up, shifting the limbs of the plane trees against the black, starless sky and sending menacing shadows shivering across the lamplit pavement. So horrifying were the implications of what he’d just heard that it was a moment before he trusted himself to speak. “If this is true—and I see no reason to doubt it—it would certainly give both Basil Rhodes and these Blackadders a powerful motive for murder. I’ll set one of the lads to looking into Rhodes first thing tomorrow morning, although it’s going to need to be done delicately. Very delicately, indeed.”
“No doubt. The instant the Palace gets wind of any such investigation, they’ll shut it down.”
Lovejoy nodded. “That’s what I fear.” He was silent for a moment as he considered the ramifications of the task that lay ahead. “As for this woman, Prudence Blackadder . . . I’m afraid the problem is going to be proving anything. People will say poor infants die all the time, particularly when they’re orphaned or abandoned.”
“Unfortunately that’s all too true. Given that opium overdoses are impossible to prove, unless the Blackadders have simply been strangling some of the infants and then burying their bodies on the farm with whatever cord they used still wrapped around the babies’ necks, we’re probably out of luck. I suspect the most we can hope for is to force the parishes to stop sending Prudence any more infants. But if there’s a way to keep people like Rhodes from handing the woman their unwanted side-slips, I don’t know what it would be.”
Lovejoy sighed. “No, that would be difficult.” He came to sit again beside the table, started to pick up his tea, then set it aside untasted. “I personally interviewed Emma McInnis’s governess and abigail this afternoon, by the way. The governess is an estimable woman named Miss Anne Braithwaite, who describes Emma as a bright, inquisitive child who was passionately interested in learning and never gave her parents any trouble. Neither she nor the abigail could think of anyone who might want to harm a girl still in the schoolroom.” Lovejoy paused. “I also expressed an interest in speaking to the younger daughter, Thisbe, but Sir Ivo says she’s already so upset by the deaths of her mother and sister that he doesn’t wish to risk distressing her further.”
“That’s understandable, if unfortunate.”
“Yes, although frankly I’d be surprised if the little girl knows anything. We can only be thankful she wasn’t there.”
“Did McInnis say why she wasn’t included in the outing?”
“No. I had the distinct impression he generally had little to do with either of his daughters.” Lovejoy rubbed his eyes with a splayed thumb and forefinger; it had been a long time since he’d felt this tired. “Beyond that, I fear we’ve learned little. I’ve yet to hear from the lad I have looking into the chimney sweep; nor are we having much luck locating the cheesemonger to whom Gilly Harper was once apprenticed. It seems the workhouses keep abominable records on those sorts of things, and all the chocolatier knows about the woman is that Gilly described her as ‘large.’ ”
“Given Gilly’s size, I suspect that would describe almost anyone.”
“I thought the same.” Lovejoy realized he was still rubbing his eyes and dropped his hand. “To be frank, I’m becoming more and more inclined to suspect that Cato Coldfield may be our man.”
Devlin’s face remained impassive. “Coldfield? Why?”
“Largely I suppose because he’s the only conceivable suspect who ties back to Julia and Madeline. None of the others do. I thought at first he might be the ‘old codger’ with a dog Lady McInnis’s coachman mentioned having noticed in the park earlier that morning, but it turns out the dog they saw was brown, while Coldfield’s dog is black and white.”
“Yes,” said Devlin, his face still unreadable. He pushed to his feet. “It’s getting late. You should try to get some sleep.”
Lovejoy rose with him. “Sleep is proving . . . difficult.”
“I know. But it’s necessary.”
Lovejoy walked with him to the stairs. “I am determined to be certain the right person is caught this time.”
Devlin turned at the top of the stairs to look at him. “We don’t know for certain the right person wasn’t caught last time.”
Lovejoy met the Viscount’s worried gaze, then looked away, blinking. “Don’t we?”