Down a Dark River, page 16
“I just want to know what time it left and came back. Can you help me there?”
Still no answer. They studied their cards.
I leaned between two of them, putting my hands on the table. “It won’t hurt you to have a Yard man in your debt. And I’ll buy your pints.”
The thin one with brown hair met my gaze: “I come back from drivin’ Mr. Swales to Euston at ha’ past nine, and it was gone.”
“When did you leave to pick up Mr. Swales?”
His eyes slid away guiltily, and he muttered, “Seven, or there’bouts, an’ it were here.”
It took no more than twenty minutes to drive to Euston, which probably meant he picked up a fare on his return journey, using his employer’s horses. But I merely thanked him and nodded approvingly, and he looked relieved.
“And when did any of you see it again?” I asked.
The man to his left grunted. “I got here next morning just ’afore six and saw it.”
The first man spoke up again: “There was a man ’anging about Monday.” He thrust his chin toward the pub. “Stood by the door, watchin’. Sumpin made me think ’e warn’t from ’ere.”
“What did he look like?”
“About as tall and broad as you, mebbe forty-some, dark hair, so long.” He gestured to the top of his shoulders and then tapped his cheek. “Thick beard.”
“Do you think he might have been the one to take the carriage?”
He thrust out his lower lip. “Mebbe. He was lookin’.”
“Yer might try askin’ over at the pub,” the fourth man hinted. “Might be he got thirsty.”
“Might be.” I turned away.
The pub stank of spilled beer and burned onions, but there was a barkeep with a watchful eye. Just the sort who’s useful. He greeted me as I approached. He took in my slightly crinkled ear; his eyes darted to my hands, then to my belt where I keep my truncheon, and a satisfied expression came over his face. He knew what I was, but he didn’t seem bothered. I ordered a pint and asked about the man the driver had seen.
“Dunno his name, but I remember him,” he replied forthrightly. “Two days in a row he come. Bought two tanks o’ ale, made ’em last. Plunked hi’self right there by the winda’.”
I went over to the chair. My view was straight into the large door of the livery, where the carriages rolled out.
“Anything else you remember about him?” I asked.
“Had a bad cough. Gurgly, like he got consumption or sumpin’. My uncle had it, ’s how I know.”
I finished my pint, ordered four more for the men in the livery, and prepared to leave.
The barkeep crooked a finger at me and leaned in. “You a boxer?”
My heart gave a quick thud. “I was, once.
“Any thought o’ gettin’ back to it?”
I shook my head. “Never.”
He appraised my shoulders and hands. “Can find you good money.”
A sudden heat flared at the back of my neck. “Nah. Thanks.”
This man was another Seamus O’Hagan, taking me for a beast to be worked.
Suddenly it occurred to me that this dark-haired man, tall and broad, might be doing the ugly bidding of someone else, someone with more power, and with more at stake.
CHAPTER 23
“Thank you for explaining,” Belinda said.
We were in bed together, Belinda’s head on my shoulder. I had just told her about Rose and Jane.
“I wish you’d explained all this last week,” she added, nudging me with her bare foot.
“Then it was just one of my many cases.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but it was close. “And on Saturday, Harry was here. I didn’t want to talk about it in front of him. Besides, you were busy quoting Shakespeare at each other.”
She ignored my gibe and propped herself up on her elbow. “I think your Mr. Haverling is right about the spectacle. Like the way Le Loup arranged the women with their arms overhead.”
I grunted.
“Tell me, was their hair loose, or tied back?”
“Rose had her hair done like you do yours sometimes, over your shoulder in curls. Jane’s looked like it had been pulled down.”
“And they were both lying on their backs?”
The insistent tone in her voice made me roll onto my side, resting my head on my palm, so I could see her face. “What are you thinking, Bel?”
“I’m thinking it sounds like the Lady of Shalott.”
I must have looked mystified, for she added, “I read it to you once. It’s a poem by Tennyson about a royal lady, who’s imprisoned in a tower. She is cursed, so she can only look in a mirror and weave a tapestry instead of living in the world. But when Lancelot appears, she looks at him directly, and her mirror breaks. Knowing she’s going to die, she climbs in a boat with flowers and floats down the river to Camelot. Lancelot recognizes her because he’s heard stories. Don’t you remember?”
I shook my head. “You’ve never read that to me.”
She gave me a teasing shove, then reached for a silken wrap and put it on. “Yes, I have. Don’t you listen when I read you poetry?”
“Not if you’re dressed like that, I don’t.”
She gave a soft laugh, took up the candle, and left me in darkness.
I put on the dressing gown she’d bought for me and followed her to the library. She stood in front of a shelf, candle raised, scanning. “Here it is.”
She paged through the volume, then passed it open to me.
“‘The Lady of Shalott, published 1833,’” I read and looked up. “So it’s about a lady who’s ruined by a man?”
Belinda shook her head. “I think it’s about a woman’s desire to exist in the world. To be more than a story.”
“So you think the murderer fancies himself doing that for Rose and Jane?” I asked doubtfully.
“I think you should read it,” Belinda said. “Let’s go back to the fire.”
Sitting on the divan, with her next to me and a candle at my elbow, I silently scanned the first stanza.
“Read it out loud,” Belinda said. “I like it, even if it’s tragic.”
I began at the first line, my tongue moving clumsily around the rhyming phrases:
“‘On either side the river lie / Long fields of barley and of rye / that clothe the wold and meet the sky; and thro’ the field the road runs by / To many-towered Camelot …’”
I read the poem all the way through and looked up to see Belinda’s eyes sparkling with tears. “Bel,” I said in surprise. “It’s just a poem.”
“But the poor woman is locked away her whole life and falls in love with someone who has no idea she exists.” She blinked her tears back with a laugh and a sniff. “It always makes me cry.”
“Well, I can’t see what it has to do with the murders.” I closed the book and laid it aside. “Although if he knows the poem, he’s probably educated. That’s something.”
Belinda dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve and gave one last sniff. “There’s also a painting, done several years ago by a Frenchwoman named Sophie Gengebre Anderson.”
“Is it famous?”
“It’s well regarded. It was one of the first purchases of the Liverpool collection. In Anderson’s version, the lady is in a boat, covered by her tapestry, so that’s not the same. But she’s beautifully dressed, with long hair, and there are flowers.” She frowned. “Although there’s a man in the boat, too. Someone of humbler birth.”
“Well, I don’t think the women were killed because of this poem.”
“Not because of the poem.” She gave a gentle slap to my arm. “Indeed, the murderer may never have heard of it. But the figure of a woman in a boat surely means something to him.”
I allowed that was true.
Her expression was pensive. “Have you talked to James? He might see some link between how the women died and what would cause a man to do this.”
I made a noncommittal noise.
“And I can send round to my bookseller,” she offered. “He keeps prints, and he might have one of the painting.”
I nearly refused before I noted her earnestness. She was as loyal as Rose or Jane, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“That would be easier than going to Liverpool,” I admitted.
In her eyes appeared a glint of surprise, and then an impish smile came over her face as she reached for my hand. “But I won’t ask him for anything unless you come back to bed.”
CHAPTER 24
The next morning, Vincent called me to his office and handed me a note from Blair: “No markings on the second boat.”
I brushed aside my regret that I’d probably wasted hours on the wharves and told Vincent everything I’d discovered so far, leaving out only the Lady of Shalott. In the light of day the connection seemed less substantial that it had by candle glow.
He listened silently, and when I finished, he nodded in what I thought was a dismissal.
“Corravan.”
I took my hand from the doorknob and turned back.
“The Review Commission is following this case closely.” He paced to the window and looked out. “Particularly Quartermain.”
I bit down on the inside of my left cheek.
He turned to meet my gaze. “He isn’t our enemy, you know. He’s mistrustful by nature, but his wariness regarding the Yard isn’t without foundation.” His expression grew rueful. “There was an interview in this morning’s Times, further to the Daniels case. Quartermain reiterated his opinion that the man would still be alive if you’d been in uniform. That he ran because he didn’t know.”
Resentment rose like a hot wave inside me. “That’s not true! Daniels knew perfectly well who I—”
Vincent put up a hand. “Whether it is true or not, Quartermain has influence, which the newspapers only reinforce. Naturally, the Commission’s future decisions don’t depend solely upon your solving this case. But if the papers get hold of it before you do …”
I flinched, imagining the headlines. “I know.”
“I don’t want to be required to take you off the case to satisfy Quartermain.” He rested his fingertips lightly on the back of his chair. “Do you need more assistance?”
“No. I’m all right with Stiles.”
He gave me a doubtful look, and I swallowed my resentment, shoving aside the thought that this man had never solved a single case himself.
He moved a paper on his desk an inch to the right. “There’s one more thing. Quartermain wants you to speak to a man named Nate McLoughlin.”
Tightness twinged my spine, but I kept my voice easy. “He’s of interest?”
“Last year he was convicted of kidnapping a girl and hiding her along a wharf near a boatworks. She escaped with scars on her wrists.” He paused. “Are you familiar with the case? He was from Whitechapel.”
“Don’t think so, sir,” I replied, as if I’d never heard the name before now.
He eyed me skeptically, but I kept silent, and after a moment, he nodded. “All right, then. Please do what you can to find him. Court records should have an address.”
That was my dismissal.
I knew enough about Nate McLoughlin to set the suggestion aside, where it belonged, and went out into the main room to find Stiles. He was at his desk, frowning at a piece of paper with some notes in a masculine hand. As I came close, he looked up and murmured, “Madeline’s recovering nicely.”
I drew a chair to his desk and sat. “Is she talking?”
“Mostly at night. But she smiles now, and she held my hand yesterday.”
I snorted. “Claws at me, clings to you.”
He gave me a look. “It’s not her fault. She was being dosed with laudanum.”
“Laudanum,” I repeated. A potent concoction, a tincture of opium in alcohol.
He nodded. “According to the apothecary near his office, Dr. Willis prescribes laudanum for many of his lady patients to treat their nerves.” He looked dubious. “I asked Dr. Everett what would happen if Madeline took laudanum nightly and then stopped all at once. He said that would cause everything from involuntary tremors and spasms to maniacal raving.” I heard James’s phrasing in Stiles’s voice. “Eventually, those symptoms diminish. So that explains her behavior when she first arrived at the asylum, like your notes said, and why she went quiet afterward.”
I have to admit Stiles’s insight pulled me up short. I’d put Madeline fairly well out of my mind, but he’d pursued the case faithfully, and he’d made headway. I felt a jab of shame that I hadn’t asked Dr. Willis whether he’d been dosing Madeline.
Stiles continued, “If she didn’t even stop to fetch her coat, she wouldn’t have brought along—”
“I know,” I said shortly. Stiles looked suddenly uncertain. And I despised myself for it. I stood up. “It was clever to check with the apothecary,” I said gruffly.
He shrugged aside my praise. “She said something new yesterday, when she was awake, in English. It was just muttering about something happening in a lane, and there’s two of them less than a hundred yards from her house—Willis and Kinsley. So I’ve been visiting them in the evening, to talk to sweeps and such, anyone who might have seen her the night she left.”
“Ah. Another good idea.”
He began to nod his thanks, then suddenly groped for his handkerchief and sneezed into it.
I noticed his nose was already red from wiping. A spring cold, no doubt.
“Bless you,” I said and headed out.
CHAPTER 25
At the Dorstones’, a grim black wreath concealed the knocker, so I used my knuckles.
When I asked for Mr. Dorstone, I was shown into the library. He didn’t rise from his chair. On a table beside him was a tray with toast and a cup of tea, both untouched.
I came close and saw the redness in his eyes, the puffiness underneath them, and the wrinkles in his clothes, as if he’d slept in them. I didn’t blame him for being distraught. To lose his son to mental disease and his daughter to murder? It seemed like hell on earth to me.
Though uninvited, I drew up a chair. “Mr. Dorstone, I’m sorry. I’ve a few more questions for you. Nothing too difficult.”
His eyes met mine hopelessly.
“Is it possible that your daughter secretly engaged herself to Mr. Eddington?” This would be a similarity with Rose.
He gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. “Last week she told me in confidence she was worried he wasn’t as sincere in his affections as he once was. I told her it was nonsense. He’d be a fool to lose her.”
“Do you or any of your family have ties to Yellow Star Tea Company, Terrington’s, or Preston’s?”
His head tipped. “No. Why?”
“What about the Baldwin company? Or connections to the Home Secretary?”
He sat back, a look of befuddlement on his face. “Not at all. Has someone told you we do?”
“No.”
“Then why are you asking?” he burst out, and suddenly his face was in his hands and he was sobbing uncontrollably.
I sat in silence for several minutes until his tears slowed and he drew out his handkerchief and blew his nose.
“Please stop,” he begged. “These stupid, useless questions.”
“Mr. Dorstone, I’m sorry. Only one more. We have reason to believe Jane may have intended to visit your son.”
At the last word, his lips parted and he licked them. “Jane went to see him every month or so. She’s the only one he wanted.”
“Would you give me permission to see him?” I asked.
He hesitated. “I can write a letter, of course. But there’s no possibility he had anything to do with …” His voice faded.
“I’d appreciate it nonetheless.”
He unfolded his limbs from the chair, crossed to a desk, sat down, drew out a sheet of writing paper, and dipped his pen. For several minutes, there was no sound but the slow scratching of the nib on the paper.
Suddenly he looked up, panic-stricken, as if he’d been shaken from a stupor. “But you can’t tell him about Jane. The doctor told us that any sort of shock could kill him! His nerves are shattered.”
I stared at him for a moment in astonishment. “He doesn’t know Jane is dead?”
“No. And you must swear you won’t tell him, or I won’t give you this!” His two trembling hands took up the page as if to crumple it.
I stifled a groan. Then how the devil was I supposed to discover anything about Jane’s murder?
But I gave Mr. Dorstone my word.
He laid the paper flat again, signed his name, and pushed it a few inches across the desk, as if the act of writing had depleted his energies entirely. “There. You have what you want. Much good it’ll do.” Then he dropped his elbows onto the desk and put his head in his hands.
“Thank you,” I said quietly and left.
I boarded a train at Charing Cross heading toward Surrey, settled into my seat, and began the business of considering how to ask Sidney about Jane—and of drawing a sharp line in my mind between what I might tell Sidney and what I couldn’t.
The train drew into the station, halting with a burn of brakes. As I disembarked, I saw a sign for Seddon Hall Sanatorium directing me to the left, one quarter mile. Once there, I found the pedestrian gate open, and I started up the curved drive toward an imposing building of pale stone, its rigid lines softened by trees spaced at decorous intervals.
I entered the square foyer, which was decorated with oil paintings depicting medical men ministering assiduously to bedridden patients. Each image included a table with a shiny bottle, and, with a prick of suspicion, I approached one picture and examined it closely. There it was—“Seddon”—clearly on the label, and a snort escaped from my chest.
“Good afternoon,” a man said behind me.
I turned and adjusted my gaze downward. The man was just over five feet tall. “Good afternoon. I am Inspector Corravan from Scotland Yard. I am here to see one of your patients.” I drew out the letter.
“And I am Mr. Harper, the facility administrator.” He opened the letter deliberately and read. His face stilled. “Ah. Hm. Mr. Dorstone.” He folded the letter and returned it. “I am afraid he is unavailable for visitors.”
