CHAPTER 8
Wrexford flattened himself against the clammy stone just as the door swung open with a rusty groan. More scuffling and scraping sounded as a wobbly beam of light pierced the darkness.
“Bloody hell, yer tipping yer end—iffen his guts slide out, it ain’t me who’s wiping ’em up.”
“The sodding cove weighs more ’n an ox,” came the grunted reply as a burly man, clad in a bloodstained smock and squashed Regent hat, took a step into the morgue. “Damnation—stop wigglin’ the light, Willy! I can’t see where I’m going.”
The beam steadied somewhat.
Out of the corner of his eye, Wrexford watched Regent Hat stagger forward, his meaty hands clasping the handles of a stretcher bearing a misshapen mound topped with a greasy oilcloth. A beefy leg had escaped from beneath the folds and was dancing a macabre jig through the foul air.
“Which way?” demanded the bear-sized fellow holding up the rear of the stretcher.
“Straight ahead.” The lantern-bearer, a short man with long, ratty hair framing his narrow face, squeezed through the door and hurried to light the way. The scent of cheap gin wafted in to join the fugue of other smells. “There be an empty slab at the end of this row.”
The clack-clack of the hobnails punctuated the bumps and curses as the three made their way deeper into the morgue. Then suddenly the lamp flickered and went out.
“Ye gin-soaked booby! Strike a flame, or your poxy carcass will be joining this one on its slab.”
Wrexford made a split-second decision. Nudging Henning, he whispered, “Follow me!” and darted for the doorway. The surgeon, though no paragon of manly muscle, showed himself to be surprisingly agile in hurrying down the corridor and making the turn for the back door. It wasn’t until they were two streets away from the mortuary that Wrexford allowed them to pause for breath.
“Auch, I’ve grown too old for skulduggery,” wheezed Henning, bending over and bracing his hands on his knees. “If my poor, thumping heart gives up the ghost and I shuffle off this mortal coil, it’s your bloody fault.”
“Oh, come—you’re cobbled together from granite and flint, with naught but Highland malt running through your veins,” quipped the earl. “And you’ve said on numerous occasions that you don’t have a heart.” A pause. “You’ll survive.”
Henning’s mouth twitched, but he covered it with a scowl. “Not if I don’t get my breakfast.” Dawn was just beginning to tinge the horizon. “There’s a tavern near Covent Garden that serves a decent meal at this hour.”
Wrexford flagged down a passing hackney. “What about the fragment you found?”
“Unlike me, it isn’t going to expire of hunger if it’s not fed in the next half hour,” retorted Henning as he slouched back against the squabs. “I’ll need to do a careful examination in my surgery, so stubble your nattering. I’ll have an answer for you later today.”
Tamping down his impatience—no mean feat as his temper was frayed and his clothes were reeking of death—Wrexford refrained from further comment. In any case, he needed some time to gather his thoughts and grab a few hours of sleep before facing Charlotte.
God only knew what reaction she would have to these new developments. A barrage of questions, to begin with.
For which he, as yet, had precious few answers.
“What’s your guess as to what the late Lord Chittenden was involved in?”
“I prefer not to guess, laddie. We are, after all, men of science, who ought to adhere to fact and evidence, not conjecture.” Henning closed his eyes. “But whatever it is, I have a suspicion that none of us are going to like it.”
* * *
Charlotte followed the boys up the stairs, unsure whether the clench in her chest was dread or elation. No matter which way it cut, knowledge was better than having her emotions trapped in a netherworld of doubts and suspicions.
Imagination could often be worse than the truth.
Or so she told herself. And yet, with each thud of her steps on the wooden treads, her heart kicked harder against her rib cage. The pain seemed to seep into her bones.
McClellan cracked open her door as they trooped by her bedchamber. “Do you wish for some tea and sustenance?” she asked, unruffled by the ungodly hour.
“No,” answered Charlotte, unable to contemplate any distraction. She quickly softened her curtness with a forced smile. “But thank you.”
To her credit, the maid simply nodded and drew the latch shut.
Raven had already lit the Argand lamp on her work desk. Hawk was beside his brother, both hands jammed in his jacket pockets.
Crackle, crackle. The whispery sound of paper twisting between his fingers sent another spurt of fear bubbling up in her chest.
“Please explain yourselves,” said Charlotte, after expelling a carefully controlled breath. Hoping against hope to hide from them how rattled she was by this crime, she added a light note. “Before I explode from curiosity.”
Raven’s dark lashes dipped to shadow his eyes.
Damnation—he didn’t look in the least fooled.
Hawk responded by brandishing a smudged piece of folded paper. “It’s all about the—”
His brother caught his hand and forced it down to the desktop. “Oiy, put a cork in it for now—we need to start from the beginning.”
The boy bit his lip in frustration, but remained silent.
“Don’t look so Friday-faced. You’ll soon get your chance to show how clever you are,” counseled Raven before turning to Charlotte. “We followed the order of the murders you wrote down for us and started in Seven Dials.”
Charlotte nodded. The first of the Bloody Butcher’s victims had been a shiftless vagrant known as Greybeard, who begged for coins at the monument—a stone pillar adorned with the circle of sundials—which had given the now-infamous slum area its name.
“Greybeard didn’t have a regular lair. He slept in whatever hidey-hole he could find at night, which is likely why nobody witnessed the crime,” continued Raven. “But on that night, some of the locals did recall seeing a few fancy coves pass through the alleyways near where the body was found.”
“Gentlemen who are cup-shot or feeling daring occasionally pass through the slums on their way home from the gaming hells,” mused Charlotte. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” And yet she felt a prickling of gooseflesh rise at the nape of her neck.
“Aye, m’lady, I know that. Still, it seemed a useful bit of information to report back to you. But it turns out I had it argle-bargled.” Raven allowed a bemused grimace. “Much as I hate to admit it, Hawk’s fiddling around with all those disgusting bugs and bits of rock isn’t as daft as I thought.”
His brother grinned.
“It’s him who remembered to look for the little details, and . . .” Raven lifted his shoulders. “You go ahead and tell her.”
“It’s you and your drawings I learned from, m’lady,” said Hawk in a rush. “Y’know, look for the little details—you’re always saying it’s the small bits and bobs that help piece together the truth.”
Charlotte sucked in a breath. She had used the aphorism to explain to the boys why gathering so much seemingly meaningless information was important for her work. Apparently, Hawk had taken her words to heart.
She stared down at the grubby piece of paper, which was still clutched in his hand. “And you’ve found one of those bits and bobs?”
Hawk tugged at the front of his jacket—she didn’t care to identify what foul-looking substance was streaked over the notched collar—and cleared his throat.
“Mebbe,” came the tentative answer. “I arsked—asked—each person we questioned to think hard and describe what the coves were wearing. The first few didn’t remember nuffink—nothing—save for a dark coat and hat.”
When Hawk became excited, his English tended to lapse back into the patter of the stews.
“But then, Fat Mary said she recalled that one of the gentlemen wuz wearing a hat with the brim curled up at the sides, and that there seemed to be a flash of something bright, like a bit of metal, on the band.”
“So Hawk thought to draw a sketch,” interjected Raven. “And Mary gabbled ‘nay’ and ‘yea’ until he got the shape right.”
“We talked to another cully,” went on Hawk, “who remembered something about a hat—”
“Said he noticed what looked to be a silver ornament in the ribbon band because he was thinking of following the gentleman and pinching it,” cut in Raven. “But then decided against it because the fellow looked too alert.”
“Oiy,” agreed Hawk. “And when we showed him the finished sketch, he said it was bang on the mark.”
Charlotte realized her heart had started to thump against her ribs. “May I see it?”
Hawk solemnly unfolded the paper and slid it across the desktop.
Though smudged and rife with creases that trapped a flickering of tiny shadows, it seemed unnaturally light against the dark-grained wood.
Unclenching her fingers, she drew it closer and took a long moment to study the penciled image. The boy had a real knack for drawing. The lines were quick and simple, yet he had captured the curl of the sides and the jaunty dip of the brim at the back and front. Charlotte recognized the style—it had a name, though she couldn’t recall it—as being popular, but not at the pinnacle of fashion with the Tulips of the ton.
Distinctive, but not too distinctive.
“We planned on going to Bermondsey tonight, and then on to the Puddle Dock,” said Raven, mentioning the two other murder locations. “If anyone mentions a hat, we’ll show them the drawing.”
“You think it might help?” asked Hawk.
“Yes,” replied Charlotte, still staring at the image. “I think it might help a great deal.” She took a sheet of drawing paper from her desk drawer and quickly copied the sketch.
Dare I hope the villain is a gentleman? The answer was still tauntingly unclear. Finding a madman among the vast multitudes of the city seemed an impossible task, especially as the morning papers had hinted that the authorities planned to move quickly in bringing Nicholas to trial.
Horrific crimes called for swift retribution.
If the miscreant were a member of the beau monde, that would narrow the choice of possible suspects. Which might also tighten the noose around Nicholas’s neck.
Charlotte gave the sketch back to Hawk. “That was very good thinking on your part.”
The praise brought a tinge of pink to his cheeks. His smile seemed to lighten the darkness squeezing in around them.
“Indeed, I’m grateful to both of you for your help. But now, I must insist that you head up to your aerie and get some sleep.” As the boys turned to go, she added, “And another thing—I won’t permit the investigation to interfere with your lessons. You’ll attend your regular sessions with Mr. Linsley and finish all your reading and writing assignments before taking on any other tasks.”
Raven’s expression turned mulish. “Are you saying reading and writing is more important than saving your friend’s life?”
The question was like a punch in the gut, but Charlotte managed an unflinching reply. “Yes, for the two of you, it is.”
Guilt over involving them in such a sordid brother-against-brother crime was already pricking at her conscience. She was determined that Cedric’s death not undo all her efforts to give them a life where depravity and death weren’t everyday companions.
Evil was like acid—it could all too quickly and silently corrode one’s soul.
“But . . .” Shoulders stiffening in defiance, Raven lifted his gaze to meet hers. Their eyes met and locked for several heartbeats.
Thump. Thump.
Thankfully, he looked away without further protest.
Charlotte waited until the sound of their steps died away on the stairs before expelling a shuddering exhale. Taking the key to the locked compartment in her desk from its hiding place, she added the sketch to the folded paper packet containing the snuff. Her mind was too muzzy to think of anything but stumbling to her bedchamber and sinking into the blessed oblivion of sleep.
* * *
A sip of scalding coffee—dark as the devil’s temptations—helped burn away the lingering sour taste of death’s degradations. Wrexford grimaced. How quickly all of man’s grand illusions of his supreme importance in the universe was reduced to a carapace of rotting flesh and putrid ooze.
He took another swallow, ignoring the plate of freshly made toast by his elbow. Thank god Charlotte had not witnessed the gruesome scene. This crime was testing her strength in ways he had never seen before. She was, he feared, perilously close to snapping.
He wished he knew why.
“Ah!” An appreciative sniff punctuated the exclamation. “I see breakfast is still being served.”
“Why is it that all my acquaintances seem to think of nothing but their stomachs?” groused the earl as he poured himself more coffee. The sight of Henning wolfing down broiled kidney and slices of blood-rare beefsteak earlier that morning had left his stomach feeling a little queasy.
“Because your chef is superb,” replied Sheffield as he went to help himself to a plateful of delicacies from the silver chafing dishes.
“He ought to be, considering the obscene amount of money I pay him.”
“Speaking of obscene . . .” Sheffield forked up a bite of shirred eggs and mushrooms. “Did you learn anything of interest at the mortuary?”
Wrexford could think of several sarcastic replies, but held them back as the sunlight caught on the lines of fatigue etched around his friend’s eyes. He, too, had been digging for dirt in the less salubrious parts of London in order to help Charlotte.
“Henning and I were able to examine the corpse, though we only evaded being caught by the skin of our teeth,” he replied quietly. “There were, as Jeannette said, strange bruises and cuts on Chittenden’s body. Henning extracted a small fragment from one of them.”
Sheffield stopped chewing. “A fragment of what?”
“I hope to learn that later today, once Henning has had a chance to examine it in his surgery.”
“Are you going to tell Mrs. Sloane about this discovery?”
A good question. One tangled in complexities and conundrums.
Outside the mullioned windows, the well-tended shrubbery swayed in the gentle breeze, setting off a subtle flickering of sun-kissed greens. Charlotte would know all the names of the hues. The depth of her perceptions never ceased to surprise him. She saw things that most people missed.
He shifted in his chair, forcing his thoughts back to the moment. “She would never forgive me if I didn’t.”
No frivolous quip, just a solemn nod came in answer.
The muted clink of silver against silver sounded as a footman discreetly removed the empty coffeepot and replaced it with a fresh one. A plume of steam wafted up from the spout, filling the room with the smoky spice of dark-roasted beans.
Sheffield set aside his plate and took a moment to refill his cup. “I don’t envy you the task,” he murmured. A pause as he added a small splash of cream. “Alas, I have some other unpleasant news to add. In making the rounds of gaming hells, I met Benjamin Westmorly. We had a discussion concerning his gambling debts to Chittenden.”
Wrexford waited for the penny to drop.
“It turns out the amount wasn’t quite as large as Locke seemed to imply. And it was paid off several days before Chittenden’s murder.”
“You know this for sure?”
“I do,” answered Sheffield. “First of all, I threatened to cut off both of Westmorly’s bollocks if he didn’t tell me the truth.” A muscle twitched on his jaw, the stubbling of unshaven whiskers sparking in the light. “Having a devil-be-damned reputation puts the fear of God into those who don’t know the truth about what a lazy fribble I am.”
He flicked a mote of dust from his sleeve. “More importantly, Debenham, whose word I trust, confirmed that he was with the pair when the vowels changed hands. According to him, the two appeared cordial.”
“It seems Westmorly must move off our list of possible suspects.”
“I’m afraid so—but that’s not the worst of it. Very few banknotes actually changed hands, because in lieu of money, Chittenden accepted certain promissory notes from a third party that Westmorly possessed. I imagine you can guess who owed him money.”
“Bloody hell,” muttered Wrexford. “Locke?”
“Yes. And apparently he plays as badly as I do at the gaming tables,” answered Sheffield with a wry grimace.
Yet again, the earl wondered what hold the fellow had on Charlotte. Pushing the thought aside, he pursed his lips. “On second thought, it’s still worth having a chat with Westmorly and delving deeper into how the three of them were connected.”
“On a cheerier note,” went on Sheffield. “It seems Locke wasn’t lying about there being bad blood between Chittenden and Sir Kelvin Hollister. They were indeed vying for the attention of the same young lady, and their exchanges were becoming increasingly acrimonious.” A sigh. “‘O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster . . .’”
“Ye gods, you’ve actually read Shakespeare.”
“Only the parts that make a mockery of human foibles.”
Wrexford chuffed a humorless laugh. “So it seems Sir Kelvin is still on the list.” Along with the Honorable Nicholas Locke.
“If you like, I can try to learn a little more about Hollister,” offered Sheffield. “As well as keep probing for information about Westmorly.”
“I’d be grateful for that, Kit.” He reluctantly rose. Loath as he was to tell Charlotte what he had learned, he ought not delay. Locke’s life seemed to be dangling by an ever-fraying thread. If they were to have any hope of proving his innocence before it snapped, they couldn’t afford to waste a moment.
“We need to gather all the facts we can.”
Though he was beginning to fear that facts would do them little good. What they really needed was a damn miracle.