An Artless Demise Page 27

  I set my teacup on the table at my elbow. “I’ve been told the Morning Advertiser is going to begin printing a regular bulletin of missing children.”

  “Good.” Her eyes gleamed with determination. “And I’ve begun looking into the various organizations purported to assist these vagrant children to see how I might be able to help.”

  “I can share a list of several I’ve been contributing to.”

  She nodded. “Please do.”

  “I’ll show myself in,” we heard a familiar voice declare before the door opened to the drawing room to admit our brother. His gaze swung from Alana to me, and he exhaled in relief. “Here you are. Your butler said you were out making calls, and after enduring an afternoon dodging veiled daggers, I suspected you might find your way here.”

  “Some were not so veiled,” I answered dryly. “But why were you looking for me?”

  Trevor plunked down in the closest chair, slouching into its depths. If possible, he looked worse than I must have when I’d shown up at our older sister’s door. “I’ve just paid a call on Miss Newbury.”

  “How is she?” I murmured, my heart clenching in sympathy for the girl.

  Trevor scraped a hand through his chestnut hair. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. The poor girl is having to care for her mother, who is prostrate with grief. I wish there was something I could do for her.”

  I offered a smile of commiseration, touched to see how much he appeared to care for her. But Trevor had always been kind and considerate—even to me, his pestering younger sister—so I was careful not to presume too much.

  “I’m sure your visits are helpful, even if it might not seem like much,” Alana told him.

  “Yes, well, I did promise to do one thing for her.” His eyes riveted to me. “She asked me to convey a message to you. She wishes you to call on her tomorrow at a quarter past three. Her parents will be out then, and she wants to see you alone.”

  My eyes widened. “She has something to tell me?”

  “I assume.” His mouth tightened at the corners. “She would not say why.”

  “I imagine she didn’t have time to,” Alana said. “If her mother was hovering nearby.”

  Trevor’s annoyance softened, as if he’d not considered this when she’d failed to confide in him. “Indeed, she was.” He looked to me. “Will you call on her?”

  “Of course.”

  He nodded. “I told her you would. Or have a very good reason why you couldn’t.” He pushed himself more upright. “Are you any closer to figuring out who killed her brother and Feckenham?”

  I shook my head in frustration. “We still can’t find a definitive connection between them or their families.” I paused to consider. “But maybe Miss Newbury knows. Or, at least, suspects.”

  “Don’t fret, Kiera. I have every faith you and Gage will figure it out.”

  I frowned. “I hope so. And sooner rather than later.”

  It hadn’t escaped my or Gage’s notice that both men had been killed overnight between Thursday and Friday, and tomorrow was Thursday. If the murderer wasn’t finished, then would we find another body Friday morning?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Promptly at a quarter after three the next day, I appeared at the Newburys’ door. The butler must have been informed of my imminent arrival, for he ushered me inside without a word. From the look in his eyes, I detected he possessed a soft spot for Miss Newbury, and I was relieved to discover it. Someone needed to look after her if her mother was too overcome to do so.

  The young lady stood gazing anxiously out the window of their back parlor, her smooth face washed in soft light. I paused, arrested by the image. It would have made a stunning portrait—a study in silent grief, in patient yearning. I captured it in my mind, my eyes swiftly appraising every detail from the curl of her copper ringlets to the ache such a sight stirred in my breast. I had but seconds before she turned to look at me, but it was enough.

  She hastened forward as the door closed behind me. “Thank goodness you’ve come. Mr. St. Mawr said you would, but I couldn’t be sure.”

  I accepted her hands. “Of course. What need do you have of me?”

  She pulled me toward a sofa, sitting down beside me. “I will tell you quickly, for I fear we haven’t much time.” She exhaled a ragged breath. “I overheard David speaking with one of his friends some weeks ago. I couldn’t hear all, but the friend seemed very agitated, and David kept trying to brush off his concern.” She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “He said something about Lombard Street and . . . and a cent percent.”

  I sat taller, recognizing what she’d overheard, even if she didn’t appear to comprehend the cant term.

  “Do you know what that means? Could it be important?”

  “Possibly,” I replied, not willing to add to her worries by explaining the matter. “Thank you for telling us. Gage and I will look into it.”

  She nodded uncertainly but didn’t press for answers.

  “Can you tell me who this worried friend was?” I asked, thinking we might get more details from him.

  “Lord Damien Marlowe.”

  I stifled my surprise, for Damien had sworn his friend had no such troubles.

  I thanked her again and hurried from the house before Lord and Lady Newbury returned. But rather than return home, I directed the carriage to Hollingsworth House, a short distance away. I decided risking an encounter with the Dowager Lady Hollingsworth was worth it to discover why her son, Damien, had lied.

  Damien sat alone in the private family parlor, staring morosely up at a painting of a ship on the wall. His clothing was rather tame compared to the dandyish togs I’d seen him wearing recently, and suited him far better than that tawdry attire.

  “You lied to me,” I stated firmly after the footman who showed me in had disappeared.

  Damien frowned. “I assure you I have not.”

  I advanced toward where he stood. “You told me David Newbury was not in the habit of gambling, but I have it on good authority he was visiting a cent per center in Lombard Street.” I arched my eyebrows at his evident surprise.

  “I admit I expressed some concern a few weeks back when he mentioned he’d been to Lombard Street, but he swore it wasn’t to visit a moneylender.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Not at first. But then he explained the matter to me. He said Mr. Callihan had extricated himself from the unsavory business of moneylending and was now engaged in raising funds for a charitable project.”

  I frowned. I disliked being skeptical of people’s good intentions, but experience had taught me that not everyone was honest or altruistic. The very fact that David Newbury was dead made everyone connected to him suspect in some way. “You didn’t find this claim somewhat farfetched?”

  “Of course I did. But he laughed about it, and I had seen how little interest he showed in the gaming tables. It seemed disloyal not to trust his word.”

  I had to concede this point, though I wished he had remembered that conversation and informed us of it earlier.

  Later, when I relayed these findings to Gage, he expressed the same dissatisfaction. “Then we’ll need to pay a visit to this Mr. Callihan tomorrow.” He turned to look at Anderley seated across from us in the morning room, where we’d gathered to review our investigations. “Which means I’ll have to rely on you to attend the final magistrates’ hearing at Bow Street.”

  Anderley’s face was drawn, his eyes bleak. I could see what a toll this investigation was taking on him. “It might be better if you absent yourself anyway. The police are anticipating an unruly crowd. There’s bound to be some unpleasantness, and you don’t exactly blend in.” His gaze carefully avoided mine, and I realized he was referring to Gage’s connection with me and all my scandalous associations with dissections and corpses.

  That Gage was aware
of this, too, was obvious by the slight narrowing of his eyes, but he skimmed over the matter. “What happened out in Bethnal Green today? I heard there was some hubbub.”

  “They set up admission booths outside Bishop’s House of Murder so people can view the cottage where the murder is believed to have happened.”

  “Ach! How ghoulish,” Bree declared, echoing my own thoughts.

  “Maybe so, but people are determined to see it one way or another,” Gage replied. “The police were probably smart to ask the owners to make such an arrangement so that the site isn’t mobbed.”

  Bree crossed her arms over her chest. “And they’ll make a pretty penny from the entrance fee, I wager.”

  “True enough,” Anderley admitted. “But considering the fact that all their tenants are leaving, and the Bishops’ cottage is likely to be stripped clean of even the bark on the trees in the garden by people wanting mementos, I can’t say I begrudge them it.”

  “Anything else of note to report?” Gage interjected, bringing us back to topic.

  His valet shook his head, subsiding back into his chair.

  “What of you, Miss McEvoy? Any sign of the man who followed you?”

  “Nay.” She frowned. “Perhaps I only imagined he was.” But I could tell from her tone of voice she didn’t believe that.

  “No, Bree,” I disputed. “If you felt you were being followed, I would wager a tidy sum you were. Don’t doubt yourself.”

  Her eyes shone with gratitude. “Aye, m’lady.”

  “What we can’t know is why. It might have something to do with the inquiry, or it might not. But the fact that he didn’t let you catch sight of his face, and he’s not been spotted by one of the servants keeping watch over the front and rear entrances to the house, makes me think his intentions were not altogether innocent.”

  Gage rubbed the back of his neck, agitated by our failure to catch either Bree’s follower or the people sending me blackmail notes. He dismissed our servants and then turned to me with a look of such dismay I knew whatever he had to say would not be to my liking.

  “Dr. Mayer refused my last offer to purchase Sir Anthony’s journals.”

  My shoulders drooped. I’d known it would never end so easily, but I had still hoped. “Could we offer more?” I asked in a small voice.

  “We can try. But it’s doubtful he will budge.” Gage’s eyes searched mine. “It’s not money he wants.”

  I closed my eyes, nodding. He didn’t need to say the words. What Dr. Mayer wanted was to ruin me. I didn’t know why or when he had developed such a hatred of me, but I had seen it in his eyes when he confronted me with my involvement in Sir Anthony’s dissections, and in the Bow Street Magistrates’ Office when he accused me of several unspeakable crimes.

  “I think we have to consider allowing my father to help.”

  My stomach clenched. “There’s nothing else we can do?”

  He reached out to take my hands. “I know it’s not what you want. It’s not what I want either. But he was right. His influence is greater than mine. If we want to bring this to an end, and quickly, then our best chance is to ask for his assistance.” When I didn’t speak, locked in a vortex of dread, he squeezed my fingers. “You do realize those journals might contain information about your blackmailers.”

  “I do,” I admitted. I also knew he spoke the truth of the whole matter, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to accept his father’s assistance. Not after Lord Gage had treated me so abominably all these months. The thought of his seeing whatever was in those journals was so mortifying it made my skin sting like I’d been bitten by a swarm of midges. “Just . . . give me a day to think it over.”

  His mouth curled into a commiserating smile. “Very well. But, at the risk of repeating my father, don’t wait too long.”

  * * *

  • • •

  We woke the next day braced for the news of yet another murder. But breakfast passed uneventfully, after which we readied ourselves to journey into The City, and yet still there was no sudden knock at the door. When we set off across Mayfair toward the east just before midday, I think we both breathed sighs of relief. Perhaps the murderer was finished. Or perhaps the night’s heavy rain had hindered his plan. Whatever the case, we had at least another day’s reprieve before he struck again.

  The rain drummed against the roof of the carriage as we traversed through London, bypassing Covent Garden and the crowd gathering outside Bow Street as best we could without venturing into the rotting slum of St. Giles to the north. The rocking of the carriage and the steady tattoo of the rain contrived to lull me into a light slumber. Given my current anxieties, my vivid dreams, and the changes happening to my body—making my legs and hips ache—my sleep of late had not been peaceful. Even so, I was surprised I was able to doze at all.

  I woke with a start as we passed the impressive edifice of the Bank of England, and the Royal Exchange, with its numerous arched columns and rib-vaulted portico roofs. Lombard Street veered southeast from the bank at the corner where the Lord Mayor of London’s Palladian Mansion House stood. We clattered on past St. Mary’s Church and the site of the old General Post Office, before rolling to a stop next to a narrow lane.

  Though Lombard Street was quite respectable, the deeper we picked our way through the muddy puddles into the back alleys and courts beyond it, the less reputable our surroundings—and the inhabitants within—became. I wrinkled my nose against a fetid stench, able to feel grateful for the wet weather for at least one reason—it dampened smells. By the time we located the building we were looking for, I had begun to worry David Newbury had been a greater actor than any of us could have guessed.

  We stood huddled under our umbrella, staring up at the blackened brick façade. I wondered if we would have to resort to knocking on doors to find the premises of the man we were looking for, when Lord Redditch’s secretary, Mr. Poole, strolled out of the building. His dark gaze remained trained on the ground ahead of him, distracted by some troubling thought. He might have walked right past us without ever looking up, if I hadn’t given a little gasp of recognition. His eyes flew upward, flaring wide as he stumbled to a stop.

  “Mr. Gage, Lady Darby.” He blinked several times, seeming to gather himself. “I beg your pardon. I was woolgathering.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Poole,” Gage responded calmly. “From the expression that was on your face, it must have been some knotty wool.”

  “Yes, well . . . circumstances being what they are . . .” He shrugged one shoulder, lifting the dispatch case he held in one hand at his side to cradle it before his chest under his umbrella. “But what brings you to this part of The City?” He glanced about at our dingy surroundings, made all the more gray and gloomy by the rain that continued to fall.

  “We’re investigating a possible connection between Lord Feckenham and Mr. Newbury.”

  Mr. Poole’s intelligent eyes studied our faces. “You’re here to speak with Mr. Callihan.”

  “You know him,” Gage said, not bothering to hide that he’d already come to the same conclusion I had.

  His face lightened briefly before dimming again. “Yes. I volunteer my proficiency with contracts, petitions, and other such documents to assist Mr. Callihan with his worthy cause.”

  Gage arched his eyebrows in expectation. “Which is?”

  “An orphan house. He’s attempting to build an institution similar to The Foundling Hospital, but one that will take more than just an unwed mother’s first child. Of course, such a thing requires funding, and land, and government approval . . . There’s a great deal yet to be done before ground can be broken.”

  This was not the answer we had expected, and Gage fumbled to reply.

  “An orphan house. How extraordinary.” He cleared his throat, finding more firm ground. “I suspect you’re receiving some resistance from people in the government who beli
eve the workhouses provide for such children well enough.”

  “Indeed,” he replied with a scowl. “The truth is, those workhouses are woefully overcrowded and poorly maintained. A child is more likely to become sick and die from a stay in such places than benefit from it. And organizations such as the deceptively named Children’s Friend Society are no better. They gather up vagrant children and ship them off to our colonies to be treated as little better than slave labor.” He arched his chin. “We wish to educate the children. Provide them a safe place to shelter, and nourishing food to eat.”

  Mr. Poole’s face became animated when he spoke of those things. Clearly it was of great importance to him, and I applauded his way of thinking. Something needed to be done to help the children, and here was a start.

  But Gage remained focused on more practical matters. “So Mr. Callihan is not a moneylender?”

  “Not anymore.” His mouth creased in a humorless smile. “I know you’re bound to be skeptical, but he’ll willingly tell you his story. He made a fortune charging gentlemen unscrupulous rates of interest, and then tripled it at the Exchange. He’s a brilliant man. And now that he’s seen the error of his ways, as he calls it, he’s determined to help those less fortunate.” He followed my gaze to the grimy building. “Don’t let your surroundings fool you. He keeps the same offices because they’re sturdy and convenient to the financial district. He refuses to spend money on a more auspicious address that could be better used on the orphan house.”

  “Then you were aware that David Newbury supported Mr. Callihan’s cause?” Gage asked.

  He nodded.

  “When we questioned you all in Lord Redditch’s study, why didn’t you mention you knew him?”

  “Perhaps it’s splitting hairs, but I don’t know him. I was aware he donated to and was a proponent of the cause, but I had never met him. In any case, you were asking if I was aware of a connection between Mr. Newbury and Lord Feckenham.” His voice turned scornful. “And I can assure you, Lord Feckenham had nothing to do with our charitable society. He had nothing to do with any of them.” I noted he’d never used such a tone while in Lord Redditch’s home, perhaps out of deference to his employer.