An Artless Demise Read online

  The convictions should have been a relief, a climax to the weeks of hearings and trials, but they were not. The entire city still seethed with panic, tense and twitchy. Perhaps the execution would calm the populace, but I doubted it. In my experience, murder—even a government-sanctioned one—never brought peace, only more turmoil.

  After hearing of the verdict, I felt an urgent need for it all to be finished. The blackmail. The Mayfair murders. If we did not stop the killer, it was but a matter of days before he struck again. Perhaps even that very night, for I’d noticed he tended to choose moments of distraction, and the trial was certainly that. Unless he meant to wait until the execution. The stinging rain that night was not the most hospitable. All we could do was hope for a reprieve.

  However, the blackmail was another matter. Gage said he had an idea how to stop it, but I suspected mine would be far more effective. Not to mention, there would be no better time than now, while three of the bodysnatchers’ colleagues waited in Newgate’s condemned cells to be hung for their crimes.

  At first, Gage balked at my suggestion, but he was swiftly brought around to the idea. Especially when I didn’t argue against his insistence that Mr. Goddard and one or more of his fellow Runners join us.

  So the following afternoon, I found myself strolling into the Rockingham Arms just as the sun had begun to dip toward the horizon. This entire area of Southwark reeked of the river, and the scents inside the pub were no better. Stale beer and sweat assailed my nostrils, as well as the faint aroma of freshly turned earth. I glanced about, wondering where this particular aroma came from, which of these men had been digging in dirt. But then I focused on locating our intended quarry.

  In the dim lighting, I barely recognized Goddard hunched at a table at the back of the establishment, his face covered by a beard, but he caught Gage’s eye and nodded toward the far wall. Three men sat around a scarred table, two of them nursing glasses of rum-hot, while the other seemed to prefer ale or porter, perhaps a pot of half-and-half. I immediately recognized one of them from the red splotch below his right eye that Mr. Penrose had described—a man Goddard had identified as John Shearing.

  Gage flicked a glance at me as if to assure himself I wanted to do this, and I nodded decisively even though my stomach quavered at what I was about to do. We approached the table, with Anderley at our backs. He snagged me a chair, setting it before the resurrectionists’ table. I slid into it gracefully before lifting the netting on my hat from my face so that they could see me. With Gage and Anderley at my back, and my hands resting in my lap with my reticule covering the Hewson percussion pistol I gripped, I found the poise to offer them a haughty smile.

  “Good evening, gentlemen.”

  They stared at me for several seconds before Shearing sneered. “I told ye Penrose squeaked on us. Well, what of it? Did ye bring us our blunt?”

  “Of course not.”

  His head reared back slightly, as if stunned by my refusal to quail in his presence.

  I arched a single eyebrow. “Did you actually think we would pay?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Then I guess we’ll be tellin’ tales to the newspapermen.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Not unless you also want me to speak to them.” I glanced up at Gage, who stood glaring down at the resurrectionists, his gaze as sharp as the knife I knew was stored in one pocket of his greatcoat. The other pocket contained a pistol. “In fact, I might consider publishing a memoir, of sorts. One that would be certain to paint you and your friends in a rather terrible light.”

  A vein throbbed in his forehead. “Ye wouldn’t dare. Yer too anxious to keep yer names clean o’ the bodysnatchers.”

  “Yes, but if you’ve already tarnished them with your implications, what’s to hold me back?”

  Shearing hesitated, clearly not having considered that, then sneered. “Go on. Ye don’t know anythin’ ’bout us anyways.”

  “I know enough.” I shrugged. “And in any case, it doesn’t matter if it’s all true. Since you’ll have already implicated me in your work, it’ll be taken as fact. My reputation might be in tatters, but it’s unlikely I would be prosecuted. While you, on the other hand, would not fare nearly so well.” I flashed my teeth in a feral smile, letting them know I meant business. “I’m sure the New Police would be only too happy to find a few more resurrectionists to use as scapegoats. After all, Bishop and his cronies can’t be the only burkers at work in London, and the people are baying for blood.” I tilted my head. “So tell me, who do you think they’ll believe?”

  The bodysnatcher pounded the table with his fist, making my nerves jump. I almost lifted my pistol to point it at his chest. Only the realization that showing our weapons could ruin my charade of indifference kept me from doing so, lest the violence escalate instead of lessen.

  “What do ye want?” he barked.

  “Simply for you to forget you know anything about me or my late husband, and to cease your blackmail of us and Mr. Penrose. If you do not implicate me, I will not implicate you.”

  I knew blackmailing them in return was a risky undertaking, but given the current fate of these resurrectionists’ friends, it was a gamble I was willing to make.

  Shearing conferred with his cohorts with his eyes and then nodded begrudgingly. “Done.”

  I searched his face, trying to ascertain if he was telling the truth, before rising to my feet and lowering my veil. “Much obliged, though I can’t say it’s been a pleasure.”

  He grunted as I turned to go. “It’s no wonder the papers dubbed ye a witch and a siren, and not just because of yer eyes.”

  Gage pivoted as if to confront him, but I pressed a hand to his arm to stop him. There was no use responding to his provocation. Let him salvage his pride by ending the confrontation with such a comment. I’d heard far worse.

  * * *

  • • •

  “I’ve a message from my father.”

  I glanced up from one of the paintings of the Faces of Ireland I’d been working on to find Gage standing at the edge of my studio.

  He advanced into the light of the two lamps I used to illuminate my work, holding the letter up. “Bishop and Williams made full confessions.”

  My eyes widened.

  “They admitted to killing the boy.” His brow furrowed. “Though they claim he was from Lincolnshire, and not an Italian Boy.”

  “That must be a relief to Anderley,” I said, knowing he was struggling with his guilt, feeling he’d somehow failed the Italian Boys that came after him.

  “Yes, and no. For he still must wonder if they’re telling the truth.”

  I considered the broad strokes of color on my canvas. “What do you think?”

  He rubbed his fingers over a dried patch of paint on the table where my supplies were laid out. “It makes little sense for them to lie. Their indictment wasn’t specifically for Carlo Ferrari; it included the possibility that the boy’s identity was unknown. So even if that was disputed, they would still hang.” He lifted the letter. “Not to mention the fact that they also confessed to the killing of Fanny Pigburn and another boy named Cunningham.”

  I nodded, agreeing with him. “What of the other prisoner, James May?”

  “He maintains his innocence, as he’s done from the beginning. And Bishop and Williams both swear he had nothing to do with the boy’s death, that he had no knowledge of the boy’s body or how he was killed. He merely thought he was helping them to get a better price for a resurrected corpse.”

  I lowered my palette, alarmed by the fact May had been sentenced to hang in less than two days for a crime he quite probably had not committed given the little evidence against him. “Is anything being done about it?”

  Gage lifted the letter to read from it. “Father says the governor and ordinary of Newgate both find the men’s statements to be truthful, at least in that rega
rd.” His eyes lifted toward mine skeptically. “They still maintain the boy was Carlo Ferrari.”

  “Of course,” I replied. For the boy to be anyone else would be an embarrassment.

  “So they, James Corder, and my father are taking all three statements to the judges this evening to deliberate over May’s fate, and decide whether they should present the evidence to Melbourne, as home secretary, and request he make either a pardon or a mitigation to consider bringing a lesser charge against him.”

  “It sounds to me as if there’s certainly a case for it.”

  Gage folded the letter. “Well, that will be up to the judges to resolve.”

  I sighed and lifted my palette. Dipping the brush in a pale shade of umber, I resumed my work on the child’s features, outlining them in broad sweeps I would paint with greater detail later. “Was Lord Acklen any more helpful during this visit than last?”

  Upon our return from the Rockingham Arms, Gage had decided to speak with Acklen one last time, to find out if he’d thought of any connection between his son and the two other Mayfair victims.

  He propped one leg up on the crossbar of the table’s legs and tapped the paper against his thigh. “No. And he wasn’t any more sober either.”

  “Well, you knew it was unlikely.” But we had to try something. We were as conscious of the clock ticking down to the execution as the prisoners, for that was when the Mayfair Murderer was certain to strike again.

  Gage scraped a hand through his golden locks and paced toward the glass wall of the conservatory to stare out at the crisp night. “Perhaps if we hadn’t been distracted by the burkers and the blackmail, we would have solved this inquiry by now. As it is, nothing is adding up. It all seems random, except we know that it’s not. This killer is either bloody brilliant or he’s toying with us.”

  I breathed in and out, trying to remain calm in the face of his frustration. Had I been painting the fine details and shading, I would have needed to put down my brush, for they required a steady hand and focused attention, but the outlines were less precise. “I know we do not like to speak in guesses and abstracts, but if you were to name a suspect, do you have one in mind?”

  The fact that he did not reply told me he did, and yet he was hesitant to name him.

  “Then who are the possibilities? Redditch? Penrose?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pivot to face me, moving his coat aside to prop his hands on his hips. “Yes. But Redditch has a solid alibi for the first murder, and I cannot see him murdering two other men to draw suspicion away from him. Penrose has no alibi, and yet, the same. I cannot understand why either of them would kill Newbury and Acklen.”

  “Who else, then?”

  “You mentioned Lord Damien, though that seems even less feasible.”

  I shook my head. “No, he didn’t do it.”

  He did not argue against this confident assertion but instead turned to pace. “Neither Newbury nor Acklen makes sense. And I have not found that any of the men who had grievances with Feckenham also had grievances with the other victims.” He exhaled a breath of aggravation. “I considered Mr. Poole for a time, but what is his motive?”

  I paused in the midst of my brushstroke, something teasing at the back of my brain.

  “I’d hoped perhaps my friend might find something suspicious about this orphan house charity Mr. Poole seems so passionate about, but he turned up nothing untoward. Everything seems quite legitimate and aboveboard.”

  My mind began to filter through all the things Mr. Poole had told us, all the things we’d learned about him. His passion for social reform, his change of employer, the orphan house, how pale he’d looked while discussing Newbury’s death, Redditch’s failure to present his bill regarding the care of vagrant children. I tilted my head, studying the sparse outline of the child I intended to depict on my canvas.

  “Children,” I murmured. “Can’t be ignored.”

  Gage turned on his heel toward me. “What?”

  I blinked at him. “I . . . think you may be right.”

  He stared at me in confusion.

  “About Mr. Poole, I . . .” I closed my eyes. “I can’t explain it. Not yet. But I think I know a way we can finally make sense of it all.”

  He moved closer, the gleam in his eyes telling me he already grasped what I intended. “Tomorrow morning.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  It was highly unusual to pay someone a call on a Sunday morning, but the situation being what it was, we had no choice. So when we knocked on the door to Lord Vickers’s townhouse overlooking St. James’s Park, we were by necessity at our politest and most insistent. Even so, we were almost turned away by his lordship’s crabby butler. Only the influence of Gage’s charm and estimable powers of persuasion convinced the old retainer to present our pleas to his lordship, who then agreed to speak with us.

  Contrary to what I’d expected after arguing with their butler for a quarter of an hour, Lord and Lady Vickers were all that was gracious and kind about our visiting them at such an hour. They didn’t appear to be the least displeased by our intrusion, and in fact, ordered the butler to have a tea tray filled with little cakes and other delights sent up.

  Lady Vickers smiled broadly at me where she perched next to her husband on a jonquil damask settee. “I well remember when I was in the family way. It seemed I could never truly be full.” Her face was a merry one, and her eyes were alive with intelligence and wit.

  I found myself grinning back, instantly taking a liking to this woman with her soft gray curls. “Thank you. And forgive me, but is that a trace of a Scottish brogue I hear?” I asked, trying to place why she seemed familiar to me.

  “Oh, aye, m’dear,” she answered, letting it thicken for a moment. She giggled. “Lady Sofia Kincaid, I was.” She twinkled at her husband. “Until I married Lord Vickers.”

  I felt my smile stiffen slightly at this revelation and strove to cover it with a laugh. I’d largely avoided those with the last name Kincaid, particularly if they were any relation of the current laird of Kincaid. The fact that I had a reluctant friendship, of sorts, with Bonnie Brock Kincaid—the head of one of Edinburgh’s largest gangs of criminals—always made interactions with more legitimate Kincaids awkward on my part. Especially since I suspected Bonnie Brock had stolen the signet ring from the laird of Kincaid, in addition to a number of other things.

  Lord Vickers chuckled and patted his wife’s hand where it rested on her knee. “That little brogue is just one of her many charms.” He cleared his throat and adjusted his spectacles. “Now, what was this urgent matter you wished to speak with me about? I understand you’re investigating these Mayfair murders, but I trust you’re not here to tell me my heir is in danger. He’s thirty-eight and residing in Sheffield.”

  “No, we have no concern for your son.” Gage shifted in his seat, adjusting his coat. “It’s concerning Mr. Poole, your father’s former secretary.”

  “Mr. Poole?” Lady Vickers repeated. “But . . . you cannot think he’ll be the next victim?”

  “I don’t believe they’re suggesting he might be a victim,” Lord Vickers told her. His good humor had faded, but I couldn’t tell if he was surprised or upset by such an implication.

  That was not so with Lady Vickers. Her eyes widened. “Oh, no, no! Impossible. Not Mr. Poole.”

  “We have no wish to rush to judgment,” Gage replied. “My wife and I both liked him immensely when we met him. But there are a few small details that are nagging us which we cannot explain away. And we thought if we knew more about him, we might have our minds relieved.”

  This speech was not strictly true, but it was diplomatic, and would hopefully put them at ease enough to convince them to speak freely. Otherwise they might tell us nothing in an effort to protect their former employee.

  Lord Vickers didn’t appear to be fooled by Gage’s conciliatory s
tatement, but he nodded. “What would you like to know?”

  “How long did Mr. Poole work for your father?”

  “Seven years. And I don’t recall my father ever uttering a word of complaint against him. He was temperate, industrious, and clever.” His brow furrowed. “And he seemed to take a great interest in the social reforms my father and I were advocating for.”

  “And yet he left your employ and went to work for the Earl of Redditch?” Gage pointed out, not unkindly.

  “Yes.” He frowned. “I admit that puzzled me. Why, when he told me Redditch had offered him a post and he’d accepted it, you could have knocked me down with a feather. It seemed such an unlikely fit. Redditch’s politics are almost the complete opposite of mine and my father’s, and what I thought were Mr. Poole’s.” He sighed, rubbing a hand over the hair that still clung to the back and sides of his mostly bald head. “But perhaps he thought he could persuade the earl around to our cause. Redditch does have more influence in Parliament and elsewhere than I do. Maybe he thought he could effect more change that way.” He glanced at his wife, who was smiling at him in sympathy.

  “I wondered if maybe he needed to distance himself from the past,” she said. “A number of unhappy things did happen to him while he was working here.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “His niece went missing, oh . . . what is it now? I guess it’s been three years since it happened.” She clutched her chest as if in remembered horror. “Taken right off the street where she was playing in Holborn.”

  I cast Gage a speaking glance, feeling empathy and dread stir in my breast.

  “My father tried to help in any way he could,” Lord Vickers added. “He sent a notice to the newspapers, hired the Bow Street Runners. But most of the reporters and authorities weren’t interested in such a story. The little girl was the daughter of a widow, and no one saw her being taken. The Runners decided she was just another runaway.”