by Amanda Quick
The door popped open.
Lavinia wrapped her cloak more securely around herself and peered into the darkened hallway. “I do hope we will not stumble across another body. I have had quite enough of corpses.”
Tobias led the way into the house. “If Sally has met with the same fate as her two predecessors, her body will likely be found in the river, not here.”
Lavinia shuddered and followed him across the threshold. “It makes no sense. Why would your client murder his mistresses?”
“There is obviously no reasonable answer to such a question.”
“Even if he did dispatch the women, what does it have to do with the death threat that was sent to Mrs. Dove or the Blue Chamber?”
“I cannot say yet. Maybe nothing. Maybe a great deal.”
Lavinia came to a halt in the center of the kitchen, wrinkling her nose at the scent of rotting meat. “You do realize what you are saying? That your client may be a liar and a murderer.”
“I told you, all clients lie.” Tobias opened a vegetable basket and glanced inside. “That is one of the many reasons why it is wise to obtain an advance on one’s fees when one accepts a commission.”
“I shall remember that in future.” She opened a cupboard and peered inside. “But you must have some theory as to why Neville would be in the habit of murdering his mistresses.”
“One possibility is that he is quite insane.”
She shuddered. “Yes.”
“But there is another possible motive.” Tobias dropped the lid of the basket and looked at her. “A man who keeps a woman tucked away in a little house such as this does so because he wishes to spend a fair amount of time in her company.”
Lavinia made a face. “Probably a good deal more time than he spends in the company of his wife.”
“Precisely.” Tobias slanted her an enigmatic glance. “Given that most marriages in the ton are made for reasons of money and social connections, it’s hardly surprising for a man to discover that his relationship with his mistress is far more intimate in many ways than the one he has with his wife.”
His point finally struck home. Lavinia swung around, frowning. “Do you really believe that when Neville tires of his mistresses he murders them because he fears they know too much about him? What sort of secrets does he possess that would make him kill three women in order to ensure their silence?”
“I will be truthful with you.” Tobias closed a drawer and started up the stairs leading to the main floor of the house. “I do not know what to think at the moment. I only know that at least two and quite possibly three women with whom Neville has enjoyed a very close connection during the past two years are dead. Supposedly by their own hand.”
“Suicide.” Lavinia glanced uneasily around the kitchen and hurried after him. “We do not know for certain that Sally Johnson followed the other two into the river.”
Tobias reached the hall and disappeared into the parlor. “I think that, under the circumstances, we must assume the worst.”
Lavinia left him to the ground floor. She continued on up the narrow staircase and emerged in a small hall.
It required only about two minutes inside Sally’s bedchamber to conclude that Tobias was wrong on one point. She whirled and rushed back to the top of the stairs.
“Tobias.”
He appeared in the hall below and looked up at her. “What is it?”
“I do not know what happened to Sally, but I can tell you one thing for certain. She packed up her things before she disappeared. The wardrobe is empty and there are no trunks under the bed.”
Tobias mounted the steps without comment and came down the hall to where she stood. She stepped aside to let him move past her into the bedchamber. When she walked into the room behind him, she found him gazing at the interior of the empty wardrobe.
“It’s possible that someone who knew her and was aware she was missing came here and stole her possessions,” he said quietly. “It would not surprise me to learn that Sally’s friends are nothing if not opportunists.”
Lavinia shook her head. “If a thief had come here, he or she would most likely have left the chamber in a state of disarray. Everything is too neat. Whoever packed Sally’s things knew the room well.”
Tobias studied the furnishings with a considering look. “Neville would have known this chamber intimately. Perhaps he wished to conceal some evidence of murder.”
Lavinia went to the washstand and glanced into the large bowl. “But if that was the case, surely he would have got rid of this bloodstained cloth and the water in this basin.”
“What the devil?” Tobias crossed the room in three strides and looked at the dark stains on the cloth and the reddish brown water. “I wonder if he killed her here and then tried to clean the blood off his hands.”
“There is no sign of blood anywhere else in the room. Everything is quite neat and tidy.” Lavinia hesitated, thinking. “There is another possibility, Tobias.”
“What is it?”
“Perhaps there was an attempt made on Sally’s life. But what if she survived it? She might have returned to her house, washed her wound, packed her belongings, and then disappeared.”
“Gone into hiding, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
He surveyed the room. “You’re right about one thing. There is no sign of a struggle in this chamber.”
“Which only makes sense if she was attacked somewhere else.” Warming to her theory, Lavinia went quickly toward the door. “We must speak with the neighbors. Perhaps one of them saw Sally return home and leave again.”
Tobias shook his head. “A waste of time. My informant assured me no one has seen Sally since she vanished.”
“Perhaps your informant did not speak to everyone in the neighborhood. It is often necessary to be extremely thorough about this sort of thing.”
“Jack is a thorough man.”
Lavinia went toward the stairs. “I know you will find this difficult to credit, Tobias. But men do not always think of everything.”
To her surprise, he did not quarrel with that. He followed her back down the stairs, and they left the house through the kitchen door.
Lavinia halted on the street and contemplated the two rows of small houses.
The neighborhood was quiet at this hour. The only person in sight was an old woman dressed in a cloak. She carried a basket full of flowers on her arm. She did not look at Lavinia and Tobias when she trudged past. Her attention was on a conversation she appeared to be conducting with an invisible companion.
“The roses are too red,” she mumbled. “I tell ye, the roses are too bloody red. Red as blood, they are, red as blood. Bloody red. Can’t sell roses that red. Makes people nervous. Can’t sell them, I tell ye. . . .”
The poor woman was quite mad, Lavinia thought. There were many like her on the streets of London.
“A candidate for Bedlam,” Tobias said quietly when the flower seller was out of earshot.
“Perhaps. On the other hand, she likely does not go around murdering people the way your client apparently does.”
“An excellent point. I wonder what that says about Neville’s state of mind?”
“Perhaps only that he is able to disguise his insanity better than that poor woman can hide hers.”
Tobias’s jaw tightened. “I must tell you, Neville has always appeared quite sane to me.”
“Which only makes him all the more fearsome, does it not?”
“Perhaps. It occurs to me that we have begun to speak of him as if we are quite certain he murdered these women,” Tobias said. “But in fact we do not yet know that.”
“You are right. We are rushing ahead of ourselves.” Lavinia studied the array of front doors. “The housekeepers and maids are our most likely source of information. I trust you brought a goodly number of coins with you.”
“Why is it that I am always the one who must produce the money when it is required in this investigation?”
Lavinia walked briskly towar
d the first of the kitchen doors. “You can put it on your client’s bill.”
“It appears increasingly likely that my client will prove to be one of the villains in this affair. If that is the case, it may be extremely difficult to collect my fee from him. We may have to put these sorts of miscellaneous expenses on your client’s bill.”
“Do stop grumbling, Tobias.” Lavinia went down the steps. “It distracts me.”
He stayed on the walkway, watching her. “One point before you knock. Try not to make it obvious that you are willing to pay for information unless you feel certain you will gain something useful. Otherwise, we shall likely be out of coins before we reach the end of the block and have nothing useful to show for it.”
“I have had some experience with bargaining, if you will recall, sir.” She raised the knocker and dropped it smartly.
The maid who responded was willing enough to gossip about the woman across the street who had been in the habit of entertaining a gentleman at night. But she had not seen her in two days.
Lavinia got the same results at the next door and the next.
“This is hopeless,” she declared forty minutes later, after talking to the last maid in the last house on the street. “No one saw Sally, yet I am convinced she came back long enough to tend her wound and pack.”
“She may not have been the one who came back.” Tobias took Lavinia’s arm and steered her along the street toward Sally’s small house. “Perhaps it was Neville who collected her belongings so it would appear that she had gone on a journey.”
“Nonsense. If he had wished to make it appear that she had left for the country, he would have removed the food from the kitchen. No woman closing up a house for an extended period of time would leave meat and vegetables to rot.”
“Neville is a man of means. He has always had servants and housekeepers about to see to the running of his household. He has probably not entered a kitchen for the last twenty years.”
She pondered that. “You may be right. But I still think it was Sally who came home that night.”
He tightened his grip on her arm. “Have you concocted your version of events because you do not want to imagine Sally dead?”
“Of course.”
“You do not even know the woman,” Tobias pointed out. “She’s a prostitute who, from all accounts, made her living in a brothel before she managed to attract Neville’s attention.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
The corner of his mouth twisted slightly.
“Nothing at all, Lavinia,” he said very softly. “Nothing at all.”
Absently she watched the mad flower seller. The old woman had paused in front of Sally’s small house. The conversation with her invisible companion had grown more heated.
“Cannot sell roses that red, I tell ye. There’s no selling the ones that are blood red. No one wants ’em, ye see. . . .”
Lavinia stopped suddenly, forcing Tobias to halt.
“The flower seller,” she whispered.
He glanced at the old woman. “What of her?”
“No one wants the bloody roses. . . .”
“Look at her cloak,” Lavinia said. “It is very fine, is it not? Yet she is obviously a poor woman.”
Tobias shrugged. “Someone no doubt took pity on her and gave her the cloak.”
“Wait here.” Lavinia freed her arm from his grasp. “I want to speak with her.”
“What good will that do?” he muttered behind her. “She’s mad.”
Lavinia ignored him. She walked slowly toward the flower seller, not wanting to alarm the old woman. “Good day to you,” she said gently.
The flower seller started and then glared at Lavinia, as if she objected to having her one-sided conversation interrupted.
“Only got bloody roses for sale today,” she announced. “No one wants blood-red roses.”
“Did you sell roses to the woman who lived in this house?” Lavinia asked.
“No one wants bloody roses.”
How did one conduct a conversation with a crazed flower seller? Lavinia wondered. Mad as she might be, however, the old woman had somehow managed to keep herself from being dragged off to Bedlam. That implied she was capable of making a living selling her flowers. Which, in turn, meant that she possessed some rudimentary bargaining ability.
Lavinia jingled some of the coins Tobias had given her.
“I would like to purchase your bloody roses,” she said.
“No.” The woman gripped her flower basket very tightly. “No one wants ’em.”
“I do.” Lavinia held out the coins.
“No one wants to buy bloody roses.” A crafty gleam appeared in the woman’s eyes. “I know what ye want.”
“You do?”
“Yer after me new cloak, aren’t ye? Ye don’t want the red roses. No one wants bloody roses. Ye want me bloody cloak.”
“Your new cloak is very lovely.”
“Hardly any blood on it at all.” The flower seller smiled proudly, displaying a quantity of missing teeth. “Just a bit on the hood.”
Dear heaven, Lavinia thought. Stay calm. Do not confuse her with too many questions. Just get the cloak from her.
“There’s no blood on my cloak,” she said very carefully. “Why don’t we trade?”
“Oh ho, so ye want to trade, eh? Well, now, that’s mighty interestin’. She didn’t want it because of the blood, ye see. No one wants bloody roses, either.”
“I want them.”
“She used to buy me roses.” The flower seller gazed down into her basket. “But she didn’t want ’em that night. It was the blood, y’see. Told me she barely escaped with her life.”
Lavinia’s pulse raced. “She escaped?”
“Aye.” The flower seller grinned. “But she’s afraid now. She’s hiding. Wanted me old cloak. No blood on it, y’see.”
Lavinia reached up and unfastened her own cloak. She swung it off her shoulders and held it out to the woman together with the coins.
“I will give you this excellent cloak plus these coins for your cloak.”
The flower seller squinted warily at the garment Lavinia held. “Looks old.”
“I assure you, it is still quite serviceable.”
The madwoman cocked her head. Then she snatched the cloak from Lavinia’s hand. “Let’s have a good look at what yer offerin’, dearie.”
“There’s no blood on it,” Lavinia said smoothly. “Not a single drop.”
“That may be as may be.” The woman shook out the cloak and reversed it so she could view the inside of the cloth. “Aha. Appears to be a stain of some sort here.” She peered closely. “Looks like someone tried to scrub it out.”
Lavinia heard a smothered sound that might have been laughter coming from Tobias’s direction. She was careful not to look at him.
“Hardly noticeable,” she said firmly.
“I noticed it.”
“That small stain on my cloak is a good deal less objectionable than the bloodstains on your cloak,” Lavinia said through her teeth. “Are you interested in trading or not?”
The flower seller’s wrinkled face tightened with scorn. “D’ye think I’m completely mad, dearie? This grand cloak I’m wearin’ is worth a good bit more than yer offerin’ and that’s a fact.”
Lavinia took a breath and tried not to show her desperation. “What else do you want?”
The flower seller cackled. “Yer cloak, the coins, and yer pretty half boots will do.”
“My half boots?” Automatically, Lavinia glanced down at them. “But I need them to walk home.”
“Don’t fret, dearie, I’ll let ye have me old ones. No blood on ’em at all. None at all. Not like the roses.” The spark of crafty awareness faded from the madwoman’s eyes. The dreamy fog rolled back. “No one wants to buy any roses with blood on ’em, y’see.”
“I have reconsidered my diagnosis.” Tobias assisted Lavinia up into the hackney. “I am no longer convinced the fl
ower seller is entirely mad. On the contrary, I believe you may have met your match when it comes to the business of bargaining.”
“I’m glad that you are amused.” Lavinia dropped down onto the seat and morosely examined the battered old shoes she wore. There were holes in the soles and the stitching was gone at several points. “Those half boots were nearly new.”
“You are not the only one who came out on the bad end of the shrewd bargain you made.” Tobias hauled himself up into the cab and shut the door. “Was it necessary to give her so many of my coins?”
“I decided that since I was losing both my cloak and my shoes, you may as well contribute.”
“I hope you are satisfied with your purchase.” Tobias dropped onto the opposite seat and eyed the cloak in her hands. “What do you think you will learn from that garment?”
“I don’t know.” Lavinia searched through the folds. “The flower seller was right about the bloodstains, though.” She turned the hood inside out and drew in her breath. “Look. The marks of a head wound, do you think?”
His eyes narrowed at the sight of the dried blood. “So it would seem. Head wounds tend to bleed freely, even when the injury is slight.”
“Thus my theory that Sally survived the attack and returned home to collect her things before she went into hiding may be right.”
“It makes sense that she exchanged cloaks with the flower seller too,” Tobias said thoughtfully. “Sally came out of the stews and that is where she would return to hide. An expensive item of clothing would only serve to call unwanted attention to her in such neighborhoods.”
“Yes. Tobias, I do believe we are on to something here.”
Lavinia saw the pocket attached to the inside of the cloak and put her hand inside. Her fingers brushed a scrap of paper.
“All we know now is that Neville’s last mistress may have escaped the fate of the others,” Tobias said. “The cloak helps to verify the conclusions you reached in her bedchamber, but it does not give us new information or lead us in a new direction.”
Lavinia stared at the ticket she had just removed from the pocket.
“On the contrary,” she whispered. “It leads us straight back to Huggett’s Museum.”
