But first, a little bit about the book:
Something more deadly than werewolves is stalking the gaslit
streets of London. Inspector Royston Jones, unacknowledged bastard of a
high-born family, is determined to track the killer before more young women
fall to his knife. But his investigation puts him in the way of a lord who is a
clandestine werewolf and the man’s fiancée , a woman alchemist with attitude
and a secret of her own. Will they
destroy Royston to protect their covert identities, or will they join with him
to hunt the hunter?
And now a teaser!
Inspector Royston Jones straightened up from his examination of the
mutilated body of the shop girl. The night patrol had found her in the narrow
alley between the butcher’s shop and the chandler’s and had immediately sent
for him despite the hour.
Parker, the constable who had led him to the scene, looked about
nervously. “They say it’s the Ladykiller, come back.”
“Nonsense.” Royston kept his tone firm, matter-of-fact. “Blackpoole
is dead. I saw the body myself.”
“They say he’s come back,”
the constable whispered.
“He had his throat torn out by a werewolf. A man doesn’t come back
from that.”
“They’re saying maybe Blackpoole wasn’t a man, sir.” Parker glanced
over his shoulder as if expecting Blackpoole’s shade to creep up on him as he
spoke. “They’re saying he was something else.”
Royston put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You’re a good man,
Parker, but you’ll never make inspector if you keep spouting superstitious
nonsense like that. Truth is, people don’t want to think that one of their own,
a human just like them, could be capable of such things. They especially don’t
want to think that there could be more than one such human predator. It was one
of the reasons Blackpoole was able to misdirect suspicion onto werewolves,
despite the evidence.”
There was a distant sound of hooves on the cobblestones. Too light
and quick to be the first of the morning delivery carts. It might be the last
of the night’s theater-goers or gambling hell rakes heading home.
He nodded toward the dead girl. “She bled out, but not here. The
cuts were clean, made with a sharp knife. Killer had some knowledge of anatomy,
but the unevenness of some of the cuts show that the victim was alive through
at least some of it.” His throat tightened on the last bit.
Pale beneath his high, rounded helmet, the constable looked ready
to vomit then, but he had already emptied the entire contents of his stomach
behind some empty crates at the back entrance to the chandler’s shop. Parker
was a solid man with a few years’ experience, but these killings would make
anyone sick, and Parker had a wife at home and two little girls that would
someday be young women out in the world. Royston, even with his longer service,
held his composure only because he’d been working late at the Yard and had
missed his supper.
Think like the criminal, his mentor, Jacob Godwin, always told him.
But who knew why this madman killed. Because it’s a day that ends in a ‘y’? The
only one who could understand would be another madman. Should he apply to
Bedlam for help?
“Just like the others,” Parker said unnecessarily.
Royston couldn’t fault his desire to break the eerie silence. The
infamous London fog wrapped the night in a funeral shroud and dimmed the yellow
haze of the gaslight street lamp in the adjoining a cobblestoned street.
Anything could be hiding in the shadows.
His eyes were drawn back to the girl. Neat-trimmed, clean nails,
good skin. She had been pretty in life.
“May as well cover the poor
thing,” Royston said. “We’re not going to get more from the body until the coroner
has a look.”
And he wasn’t any closer to catching the killer than he had been
after the first murder, or the third. Big Ben chimed five times. Soon his
London would be up and about its business, watching over its shoulder for the
monster that lurked somewhere in its midst.
#
By
that afternoon, Royston had a name for the victim. Her flatmate had run up to
the constable on their beat in tears. Kitty hadn’t come home that night, and it
wasn’t like her, Kitty was such a good girl, and with these murders, well. . .
The constable had already heard of the latest victim found and
escorted the flatmate to the morgue, where, according to the attendant, she
collapsed into a dead faint on seeing the victim’s face. Upon being revived
with smelling salts, she had provided a name. Kitty Harper, nineteen years old,
come from her family’s failing farm to seek her fortune.
She’d had better luck than many such girls, having secured a
respectable job at a dry-goods shop. Better luck, that is, until her luck ran
out. Royston had tea brought into the interview room. Tea was a comforting
ritual even when there was no comfort to be had. It gave the interview subject
something to focus on when the words tumbling out of her mouth were too
horrible to bear without distraction.
He gave her a moment to settle in and take his measure. Royston
knew himself to be one of the Yard’s less impressive physical specimens. His
hair was a nondescript, mousy brownish-blonde and he was among the shortest men
ever to be accepted onto the force. But in interviews, his appearance worked in
his favor, and he accentuated it with a deliberately mild manner that put
witnesses and sometimes even suspects at ease, made them feel as though it was
safe to speak freely.
The flatmate, pale blonde and blue-eyed, had the sort of complexion
that betrayed emotion in a range of color. At the moment, her bloodless-white
face carried blotches of pink high on her cheeks. The look of high fever, or
great distress. Royston wanted to comfort her, to change the topic to a more
agreeable one, to suggest that she go home and rest and have a friend bring her
tea in bed.
Instead, he asked question after question about the dead girl,
knowing all the while that the flatmate couldn’t speak her friend’s name
without seeing her dead on the slab, couldn’t think of her without imagining
what horrible wounds the coroner’s stark white sheet had hidden.
“It were him, weren’t it?” she asked. “The one the papers are
calling Doctor Death?”
Why did the papers have to sensationalize everything? This case was
bad enough without screaming headlines and clever monikers.
“That is one avenue we’re exploring.”
She narrowed her eyes. To hell with proper form. He’d get nothing
from her if she didn’t trust him, and she wouldn’t trust him if he remained all
proper and procedural. “Probably, yes,” He softened his tone, but nothing could
soften the words.
She gave a choked cry, stifled it with the handkerchief he had
loaned her. It was one thing to suspect, another to have one’s suspicions
confirmed. He gave her a moment.
She continued in a high, tight voice. “What the papers said, about
how those other girls died?”
“You don’t want to know about those things, Miss.” And, oh, God, he
didn’t want to talk about them. Certainly not with someone who had known the
victim in life.
She sobbed into the handkerchief. He waited out the storm. Crying
women always made him feel helpless.
“Can you think of a reason someone might want to have hurt your
friend?”
“Why? Papers say it’s random, say anyone could be next.”
“We haven’t found a connection yet. That doesn’t mean there isn’t
one.” And if there isn’t one, finding the
killer will be as hard as finding a drunken sailor in Church on Sunday.
“Besides, we have to rule out the possibility of someone using these killings
as a cover.” When totally at a loss, the only thing to do was to fall back on
the standard questions. “We must be thorough. We owe that much to Miss Harper,
don’t we?”
She nodded, and sipped at her tea, making a clear effort to compose
herself. “There was no one. This may sound impossible, but I can’t think of a
single person who disliked Kitty. She was the sweetest—“
He waited patiently for her to get herself back under control. “Was
there any beau? A special young man she was walking out with?”
“No. She had her share of admirers, sir. ‘Course she did, pretty as
she is. Was. She was friendly with all of them,”
No strong suspects, not even a weak one.
“Oh, not like that, sir,”
she said, catching and misinterpreting his frown. “Just, she came from the country,
see? Everyone was a friend to her, she hadn’t learned London ways. She was
just. . .friendly. Never saw the bad in people.”
All the easier for a charming stranger to chat her up and lead her
off. From the lowliest schoolyard bully to the worst of the men who killed for
amusement or for the few coins in the victim’s purse, predators looked for
weakness. Unfortunately, in the streets of London, being too kind, too
friendly, too willing to help a stranger in need constituted weakness,
especially for a vulnerable unmarried woman.
Royston drank his tea, bitter in his mouth despite milk and extra
sugar, hoping it would somehow stave off the headache building near the front
of his skull, the combined result of a lack of sleep and a lack of hope.
“Kitty
was the best friend I could ever hope for,” the girl said. “I just can’t
believe something like this could happen. It’s just like with the Ladykiller,
except the ’wolf got him. Would figure that it’d be the rich girl he saved,
that’s just how the world works, innit? Except I can’t figure why a werewolf
would side with the hoity-toity; they’re kept even lower than us working folk.”
That was just one on the unsolved mysteries around that supposedly
closed case. Royston was just glad it hadn’t been his case, though the
Inspector in charge had brought him in to assist. He'd been newly promoted and
enthusiastic and had that really been just over a year ago?
“I’m so scared, Inspector. All us girls are so scared." Her
eyes pleaded, full of fear. "Please catch him, sir. Please catch him
before he gets another one of us.”
Royston saw her out with a solemn oath to do his very best to see
justice done for Kitty Harper. That much he could swear to. He’d do his best,
he’d been doing his best, but right now his best felt utterly inadequate.
Royston
forced himself to choke down a cold sandwich at his desk before his next
interview. The headache would only be worse if he didn’t eat. The food sat in a
lump in his stomach as he left to interview Miss Harper’s employer.
The
Commissioner and his daughter were coming into the Yard just as he was leaving.
Adela Chatham was a vision indeed. An intricate twist held her hair up under
her peacock-plumed hat, but a few rich chestnut curls artfully escaped to frame
the sweet oval of her face. The rich emerald of her dress complimented her
coloring perfectly.
She had consented to walk out with him a time or two. Royston had
dared to hope, but it had come to naught. He suspected that her father’s
disapproval had something to do with that, but she was too well-bred to
embarrass him by explaining the cause in detail. He supposed it had no future
to begin with. Though the gentry would consider a police commissioner barely
above a tradesman, the commissioner thought much more of himself, and Miss
Chatham had been brought up as gently as any lady, untouched by the darker
realities of her father’s world and as untouchable as an angel in a dream.
“Inspector
Jones, how do you do?” The sincerity of her smiled warmed him through.
“Well,
thank you. You are a vision as always, Miss Chatham.”
She
blushed prettily. “And you are still the consummate gentleman.”
“Adela,
could you wait for me just inside? There’s a lamb.” When she was out of
earshot, the Commissioner turned to Jones. “A word, if you will, Jones.”
He
had already started on his way. He stopped and turned, one step down from the
Commissioner and feeling that much shorter for their relative positions.
“Any
progress on these new killings?”
Royston
looked down for a moment, then made himself meet his superior’s eyes. “No, sir,
not yet. We have an identity for the girl found last night. Her flatmate wasn’t
able to tell me anything of use. I’m on my way to talk to her
“Honestly,
Jones, if I’d know from the outset how big this case was going to be, I’d have
assigned it to someone more seasoned.”
“Yes,
He
wouldn’t point out that of the more seasoned inspectors, two had retired, three
had been fired for graft, and the remaining couldn’t come close to Royston’s
success rate.
“I’m
keeping you on the case because of your work in the Dalton case and because
Godwin seems to see something in you. This case could make your career, Jones.
I’m giving you a chance to rise above your background. Not many men get that.
It’ll be on my reputation as well as yours if you fail. Don’t let me down.”
“No,
sir.”
He could not entertain the fear that Chatham’s low opinion of him
was justified. He had proved himself time and time again. But this was his
biggest case yet. What if he wasn’t equal to it? He’d sworn he’d prove himself
to those who looked down on him as a governess’s bastard with a name his mother
had usurped from her betters. But what if his pride meant that a killer stayed
free and more girls died?
This case could, as Chatham pointed out, make his career. But the
girls were more important, the ones walking home from merciless jobs through
lonely walkways, yes, even the ones working the streets because they had no
choice. The women who, like his mother, had no one to care for them in a city
that made it difficult and dangerous to be a woman alone and unprotected.
Royston
walked a short distance and then caught the omnibus that would take him to the
dry-goods shop where Kitty Harper used to work. The interior of the ‘bus buzzed
with a half-dozen conversations, not all of them conducted in English. Most of
the words he caught and understood (English, plus the French and Greek he’d
learned from his mother) had something to do with the dead girl, the killer,
the terror that ran through the streets of London, and the ineffectiveness of
the Yard.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glad that his rank freed him
from the identifying uniform.
As the patient, plodding horses wove their way between hackney cabs
and delivery carts, stopping here and there to avoid pedestrians and bicycles
and the occasional steam-driven horseless, he turned his mind to the dead
girls.
He
could see no obvious link between them. The first two had been prostitutes,
which was probably why Royston had been put on the case instead of someone the
Commissioner favored more. No one cared about a couple of dead whores. Good
riddance, many would say.
As though prostitution weren’t the inevitable result of a society
that declared a man should not marry until such time as he was financially
settled and that ‘good’ women did not have sex outside of marriage. Combine
that with natural urges and the pressure on boys to ‘become a man’, add in the
extreme desperation of poverty, and he couldn’t imagine how anyone expected
that there wouldn’t be prostitutes.
The only reason an investigation had been opened at all was the
gruesome way the girls had died and the similarity to the Blackpoole case. The
next girl had been a seamstress, though, and the one after that a washerwoman.
Three of the four girls had been fairly new to London, and both of the
prostitutes had been fairly new to the trade. No common acquaintances.
The
omnibus jerked as the horses pulled to a sudden stop to avoid a flashy
horseless carriage zipping through traffic in a particularly reckless manner.
Bloody toffs thought they owned the road!
Although
he had to admit, it had been a particularly fine-looking machine, all bright
paint and polished chrome. He didn’t imagine he’d have a chance to ride in one
of those in his lifetime.
The
horses leaned into their traces once more, and the omnibus continued its slow
progress.
One thing kept repeating in his mind, words repeating like a chant
in time to the slow clop of the horses’s hooves against the paving. It’s just like with the Ladykiller, except
the ’wolf got him. . . I can’t figure why a werewolf would side with the
hoity-toity. . . When something wouldn’t leave his mind, he’d learned to
pay attention.
From where the omnibus let him off, it was only a half a block walk
to the dry-goods shop. Not the fanciest part of town, but definitely not the
worst. There was a stationer’s, a dressmaker’s, and a butcher with offerings
that looked fresh and wholesome.
The merry jangle of the bell on the door of the dry-goods shop set
Royston’s nerves on edge. The gray-haired woman behind the counter turned at
the sound. He took in the pride of her manner and the quality of her dress,
which, while though of plain gray linen, bore lace embellishments on the
sleeves. Surely this must be Mrs. Tull, the proprietress.
Her eyes, red-rimmed from crying, softened the first impression
given by the thin, downturned lips and the hard lines of her face. She had
heard already what had happened to Miss Harper, then. At least he did not have
to break the news—by far one of the worst parts of his job.
“I’m
sorry to disturb you, Ma’am. I’m Inspector Jones of Scotland Yard. Do you have
a moment to answer a few questions about Kitty Harper?”
“Yes,”
she said. “Yes, of course. “You’d best come through to the back. The bell will
tell me if anyone comes in. I’m sorry, I’m short-handed today because…” A sob
caught in her throat, and she swallowed it with visible effort. “I’m
short-handed,” she repeated in a firm, business-like tone.
“Of
course,” Royston said softly. “I’m sorry.”
He
followed her to the back room of the shop, which was dimly lit by a high window
and crowded with a hugger-mugger of accounts books and receipts and an overflow
of shop merchandise. A small stove huddled in one corner. He pictured Miss
Harper here, perhaps shuffling through things looking for a special order for a
customer or having tea on a break, greeting a coworker with a sweet smile.
“I’ll
put on a kettle for tea,” she said. “It won’t be but a minute.”
She
bustled about, putting a kettle on the stovetop, getting the plain blue tea pot
down from a high shelf in the cupboard, carefully measuring out the tea leaves
from a canister with the focus and care of an alchemist working with precious
metals or dangerous chemicals.
Royston
made himself sit patiently through the ritual of tea-making. One thing about
this part of his job—he’d never go thirsty. Refusing tea would have set the
woman off her routine and emphasize the fact that this wasn’t a social call.
The closer she came to forgetting that he was a Detective Inspector and not a
sympathetic neighbor, the more open she’d be.
The
bell at the door rang. She jumped, nearly dropping the china cups and saucers.
“Oh,
dear,” she said. “I’d best. . .”
She
took a step toward the front of the shop, and then back, indecisive.
Royston
smiled at her in reassurance. “It’s fine. You have a shop to run. I’ll take
care of the tea, shall I?”
That
only made her do the back-and-forth dance once more, with a quick glance to her
china as though uncertain whether a mere man could be trusted with so delicate
a domestic operation. But at last the needs of commerce won out, and she
excused herself, leaving him to watch the pot on the stove.
He
listened to the sound and rhythm of the voices in the front of the shop but
couldn’t make out the words until Mrs. Tull’s voice rose in anger.
“Fine
then! Your custom will be no great loss to me, I assure you, ma’am.”
The
kettle whistled, and Royston jumped to pour it over the measured leaves in the
pot, performing with the honor of all bachelors everywhere at stake. Thus
distracted, he missed the customer’s reply, though he heard the bell ring
angrily as the door jerked open hard and slammed shut. To his surprise, next
came the sound of the lock on the door as it shot home, followed by the sound
of windows being shuttered.
Mrs.
Tull stalked back to Royston, her face red, her hands on her hips. “Gossips!
Nasty, filthy-minded gossips. Third one this morning. I’ve closed for the day.
I can’t bear it, I tell you!” Her face screwed up as though she didn’t know
whether she wanted to sob, scream, or do violence.
“And
you! I expect you’re here to try to dig up some sordid stories about poor
Kitty, find some way that this was all her fault to excuse yourself and the
rest of you Peelers for your inability to do your bloody jobs!”
Royston
flinched. Her anger came out of fear and grief, not rationality, but that
didn’t make it any easier to bear.
“Kitty
was a good girl! She didn’t do one thing, one bloody thing to bring this on
her,” Mrs. Tull sank into the nearest chair and buried her face in her hands,
sobbing.
“I
know,” Royston said. “I know. I talked to her flatmate earlier. And in my line
of work, I’ve seen enough to know that horrible, horrible things sometimes
happen to the best of people. The small-minded would prefer to blame the victim
because it makes them feel safer, no matter how much it hurts those left
behind.”
It
had been that way when his mother was killed.
He
pulled out a fresh handkerchief and offered it to her. Tools of the trade. He’d
never yet had to fire a gun in the line of duty, but he’d employed a
handkerchief more times than he could count. A gentleman always carries a clean handkerchief, his mother
had told him, time and time again. Little did she know how handy that would be
in his chosen field.
Mrs.
Tull dried her eyes and looked up at him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m
sorry, it’s just. . .” She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“It’s
all right. Take a moment.”
He
poured tea for both of them while he waited for her to collect herself.
“Kitty was such a sweet girl,” the woman said after a calming sip
of tea. “Good worker. Honest as the day is long. Always had me send part of her
pay back to her widowed mother in Derbyshire. What kind of man could do this?”'
“That’s just what I’m trying to find out, ma’am.”
The shopkeeper, though more than willing, had nothing of substance
to offer. Kitty was a friendly girl, so sweet and so pretty, a favorite of all
the customers, but no, there was no one she could recall who paid her any
special attention, or who hung about often enough to make anyone uncomfortable,
mostly it was women who did the shopping, don’t you know? No, there had been no
gentlemen meeting her at the door to walk her home.
Essentially the same story as the flatmate had given. He thanked
her for her time and extracted her promise to contact him should she think of
anything else.
She walked him to the door. “Thank you. Thank you for listening.”
She tucked a packet of biscuits into his pocket before he could protest. “To
strengthen you on your way. Catch this monster for us, Inspector.”
He wished he could promise that he would. Instead, he said the only
thing he could. “I’ll do my best.”
On the walk to catch the omnibus, he passed a beggar in ragged,
ill-fitting clothes. The man looked familiar, and he scoured his memory. Not
one of his sources. Someone he’d arrested at some point?
Maybe—no. Clean the
man up, take ten years off him. . .
“Smythe, is that you?”
The man looked up sharply, startled at being recognized.
At least that explained why an apparently able-bodied man was
begging in the streets mid-day when there might be work to be had on the docks.
In the wealthy, idleness was considered a virtue, but in the poor, it was a
sin. A smart beggar would either have to appear to be seeking work, or show an
obvious reason why he could not work. It seemed Smythe was still too honest to
pretend blindness or other malady.
Smythe was smart and good at maths, and everyone at school had
agreed that he was destined for something better than the factory work that was
slowly breaking his parents’ health. A clerk, for sure, maybe even a
bookkeeper, it could happen.
But that was before he was bitten.
“I had heard. . .” Royston trailed off awkwardly.
It wasn’t something you talked about, was it?
Smythe gave a weary shrug of one shoulder, as though two would be
too much effort. “These things happen.”
Royston glanced away and tried to think of something to say. He
dealt with terrible, terrible things every day in his line of work, but it was
different with someone he knew.
Smythe had been robust in their school days, muscled from helping
his uncle load delivery carts in the dark morning hours before the start of school.
Now he looked like a scarecrow. Probably lived off of soup kitchens and scraps.
No one would hire a werewolf, and few who knew what he was would spare a
ha’penny to one begging in the streets.
Royston put a hand in his pocket.
Smythe shook his head and backed away. “No. You don’t have to.”
Bad enough to be begging in the streets. Royston imagined it would
be far worse to accept a hand-out from someone one knew. He managed a smile.
“Not charity. Just think of it as me buying an old friend a drink.”
A small difference, especially as he offered enough silver to buy a
couple of meals as well.
“You’re a good man, Royston,” Smythe said. “Always have been.”
Smythe glanced around furtively before accepting the money. Looking
for other ‘wolves. Werewolves, excluded from normal society, had one of their
own. If it was largely criminal, well, what other options had they? No ’wolf
who valued his skin would be seen by others taking money from a police
inspector. Whether Smythe was part of the criminal subclass or just afraid of
them, Royston didn’t want to know. He wished the man well and hurried to catch
the omnibus.
It had been too long a day on too little sleep, and he contemplated
a quick stop at his favorite fish-n-chips cart and an early night, but when he
stopped at the Yard to file his notes there was a dinner invitation awaiting
him from Jacob Godwin.
Godwin always showed an almost psychic sense for when Royston
needed to talk, but with last night’s dead girl all over the papers and the
headlines screaming of the Yard’s lack of progress, it wouldn’t take a master
detective such as Godwin had been to know Royston’s state of mind.
#
Jacob Godwin forbade two topics at the dinner table—the work and
Godwin’s son, Willie. Willie’s mother was long gone, and Royston often took
meals with his mentor in Godwin’s rented rooms, which were small but
well-furnished, and significantly more comfortable than Royston’s lonely
portion of a two-up, two-down.
Royston had been a constable when a bank robber’s bullet had
shattered Godwin’s kneecap, ending the career of one of the finest detectives
London had ever seen. Godwin was an impressive man even now, tall and broad of
shoulder, posture proud and straight, the steel streaking his black hair
speaking of dignity rather than infirmity. His big hands were equally suited to
collaring a criminal or to comforting a young boy who was being bullied.
The
roast and potatoes were excellent. Pursuant to Godwin’s rules they kept the
conversation light, discussing the merits and disadvantages of the newfangled,
steam-driven horseless carriages over a good, old-fashioned carriage-and-four.
Pure frivolity—neither Godwin on his police pension nor Royston on his new
detective’s salary could afford either conveyance.
Royston’s mind was only half on the subject, anyway.
Finally
they adjourned to the sitting area to smoke by the fireplace. Godwin handed
Royston tea liberally laced with brandy.
“So,” Godwin said. “They’ve found another one last night.”
Royston
nodded, though it hadn’t really been a question. Godwin filled his own pipe
from a seashell-encrusted box that had been a souvenir from a Brighton Beach
trip when Willie was a boy, a memento of happier times. He handed the box to
Royston. Royston took his pipe case from the inner pocket of his jacket and
proceeded to fill and light his pipe. He seldom indulged in tobacco, except for
this ritual with his mentor who had given him his first pipe when he turned
eighteen.
He leaned back, taking comfort in the familiar scent and flavor of
good tobacco, one of Godwin’s few extravagances. This same overstuffed chair
had dwarfed him as a child, that first day Willie brought him home to meet his
Da.
The chair had been of good quality, finer than any Royston had sat
on before, but now it was a bit faded, upholstery worn thin at the arms.
He had been anxious to talk about the case over dinner. Now that
the time had come, he wished he could indulge in the comfort of fire, brandy,
and tobacco without dragging the memory of dark alleys and torn flesh into this
sanctuary.
He opened his jacket buttons. No need to stand on ceremony with
someone who had washed his grubby hands and face when he was a boy, and Godwin
always kept his home warmer than Royston did his own rooms. Even on his
inspector’s salary, the extra coal seemed like a needless extravagance. He’d
become used to much colder when he was a child.
“You always say to think like a criminal, to understand how he
thinks as the huntsman understands the fox, but how can I begin to understand a
mind like this? Though I’ve been fortunate enough never to come to it myself, I
can imagine killing in the line of duty to protect innocents or in
self-defense. Killing in hot blood, in rage, I can understand, even if it is
reprehensible. But to abduct a girl off the streets and kill her slowly, take
her apart as she screams and cries and begs for mercy, I can’t understand it.
I’m not sure I want to. But if I don’t understand it, then I can’t understand
the killer, and I can’t catch him before he kills another poor girl.”
His chest heaved with emotion by the time he finished his rant. In
silence, Godwin; calm, implacable, and understanding, waited until he pulled
himself together.
“The newspapers are saying that the Ladykiller walks again,”
Royston said at last. “Ridiculous, of course, though the modus operandi is similar. Except for the brass wolf token
Blackpoole left, and that was meant to throw us off his track.”
Godwin
would know all of this, of course. But it helped to talk things through. Godwin
was always patient about letting Royston work his way through to an answer.
When Royston had been a boy, Godwin would bring tales of his cases home for
Royston and Willie to whet their minds on. Willie had been better at the game,
but Royston keener and more focused, so it had often been Royston who puzzled
out the answer after Willie had wandered off to shoot marbles.
“Still,
I can’t ignore the similarities in the victims. All were young women, mostly
working class.” Royston fingered the charm on his watch chain, a small French
coin his mother had given him with the watch and chain. It was both a novelty
and a symbol, so that he would never be totally penniless. “What if Blackpoole
wasn’t acting alone? His death may have caused the other to change tactics.
There may be more predators out there, just as I’ve always believed that the
Ladykiller had more victims than have been recorded. As you’ve always said, a
killer like that often starts young.”
Godwin
shook his head. “The trail was cold on your mother’s case years before headlines
with the Ladykiller started selling newspapers. For your own sake, I wish you
the closure of certainty, but I fear you’ll never find it.”
Royston
turned his mind to mysteries more recent. “It still bothers me. About the
werewolf. We never found out who he was or why he came to Miss Fairchild’s
rescue alone among all the victims. And then there was the thing with the
tracks.”
Godwin
lit his pipe. “Tell me again about the tracks.”
Godwin
wouldn’t have forgotten a single detail, but sometimes things came together in
a new way when the details were spoken aloud. It hadn’t worked yet on this
particular mystery, but it might.
“There
were human footprints all over the garden. Mrs. Pemberton had led the early
guests on a moonlit tour of it. The wolf prints were very clear in the soft
dirt, but it was as if the wolf just appeared a few strides away from where the
kill took place. As though he had materialized out of thin air.”
“Or
as if some of the muddle of human footprints were his human form and he had
transformed there,” Godwin said.
“In
that case, he would have had to transform among the guests, as they were
walking about the garden just at moonrise, according to all accounts. The moon
was well up when Blackpoole tried to make away with Miss Fairchild, and the
’wolf intervened.”
“I
can hardly imagine such an elegant company allowing a ’wolf among them,” Godwin
said. “Was there no other mention made of unusual occurrences that night?”
“Nothing
so unusual as a werewolf among the guests. You know how conscious such gently
bred folk are about the company they keep. Such a scandal would surely be
remarked on. I think we can rule out that he transformed in the middle of the
garden at moonrise before all of Pemberton’s elegant guests. Yet if he transformed
elsewhere, where are the rest of the tracks? And a werewolf cannot help but
transform at the rise of the full moon.”
“There’s
an alchemist who’s been claiming his draught can suppress the shift. It's still
in the experimental stages but supposed to be promising,” Godwin said.
“Snake
oil?”
“I
don’t think so. It’s the same alchemist the Yard uses for blood analyses.”
“That
Foster fellow? I’ve met him. He seems sane enough, as far as alchemists go. But
if the draught works and if the werewolf were taking it, he wouldn’t have
changed at all.”
“You
haven’t heard of the Riley case?” Godwin paused. “No, you would have been a
constable then, sorting out drunken workers on the docks. It was kept pretty
quiet, too. No one wanted to stir up controversy.”
“What
happened?”
“One
of Foster’s early test subjects was walking home from the pub in human form on
a full moon night. He was set upon by a back alley cutthroat who would have
taken his purse and his life. He abruptly shifted into wolf form to his own
surprise and that of his attacker. Killed the man quick as a terrier with a
rat. Pure instinct—which is not a legal defense, and it was clearly
self-defense.”
“Which
is an excuse under the law, even if
it’s seldom applied to werewolves.”
Back
when he was a constable trying to prove himself worthy of advancement, he’d
read the laws, studied court transcripts, even sat in the gallery of the
courthouse on his days off to hear cases tried. He’d seen a ’wolf sentenced to
hang for killing two squires’ sons who had decided it would be fun to hunt a
werewolf through the countryside with their horses and hounds as though he were
a fox. The gentlemen’s surviving
friend claimed that it was all in fun, testimony which was not supported by the
bullet wound in the werewolf’s lower back. The shot had been clearly made while
the wolf was still running and had been, as the unfortunate defendant
testified, the reason he decided that fleeing was futile and his only hope of
survival was in attack.
Royston had left the courthouse after the verdict was announced
even though half a day’s hearings still lay ahead. He'd taken a long walk
through London, reminding himself of all the people who still deserved to be
protected.
“According
to the coroner, the man died of a heart attack rather than directly from his
injuries. That helped his case. Foster’s theory was that a moment of extreme
passion somehow overrode the alchemy that kept the wolf chained inside the
man.” Godwin’s voice pulled Royston back to the present. “He said it had
happened once before, when one of his patients came home after moonrise and
found his wife in bed with the neighbor. He changed instantly and barely
restrained himself from tearing both their throats out. Good thing he did, for
his sake, though they would have deserved it.”
Given
Godwin’s unfortunate marriage, Royston could hardly fault him for his hostility
toward adulterers.
“The
werewolf who killed the mugger did get off on self-defense. He was lucky—a
witness came forward, and the cutthroat he killed was known to authorities. If
he hadn’t been a werewolf, he probably would have won some sort of award for
public service.”
“So you’re saying the wolf who killed the
Ladykiller could be one of Foster’s patients? But why did he rescue Miss
Fairchild and not the others? Are you suggesting he had passionate feelings
toward the woman?” He chuckled. “If so, Lord Bandon will not be best pleased.”
He did not have to be one of the gentry to be privy to the upcoming nuptials.
It was splashed all over the papers. The heiress to the Fairchild estate was to
wed the last Bandon scion.
“It
might not have to do with Miss Fairchild at all,” Godwin said. “Given how
Blackpoole was trying to redirect blame toward werewolves, any ’wolf in London
would have reason to hate him.”
Which made sense. Only, Royston’s gut told him that it did have something to do with Miss Fairchild, and a good detective never ignored that kind of a gut feeling. He was less sure that the werewolf or Miss Fairchild had anything to do with his current case, but with no other leads to follow, it might bear investigation. His mind kept coming back to the werewolf, and that had to mean something. When he found his thoughts worrying at a subject, like a dog at a bone, he had to pay attention. Sometimes the idea came to naught, but more often it came to something.. He would have never solved the Dalton case if he hadn’t followed up on his niggling feelings about the bowler left on the scene.
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