A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1)

by Shawna Reppert

  Royston smiled brightly. “Then it’s a good thing that this isn’t a social visit. I only need to ask her a few questions about one of the guests at a charity event she held. When he arrived, how long he stayed. A matter of establishing an alibi.”

  “I doubt that any of Her Ladyship’s guests would be involved in a criminal matter.”

  “All the more reason to get the business cleared up quickly, isn’t it?”

  The butler sighed, probably realizing at this point that Royston wasn’t going away and that having a policeman standing for any length of time outside Her Ladyship’s door would attract more attention than letting him in. He stepped back to admit Royston. “I will show you where you can wait while I see whether Her Ladyship is disposed to receive you.”

  He was led to a small sitting room, no doubt one meant to receive less-favored guests. The wallpaper was a dark, elegantly patterned green, the wainscoting of a deep brown. Gleaming brass fixtures provided the only touch of brightness.

  As soon as he was alone, he surreptitiously blew his nose. His cold must be losing its grip because he could smell furniture polish and stale air. Quite possibly the heavily-curtained window had not been opened this century.

  He had time to contemplate the oil painting on the wall opposite, a probably very old, certainly very valuable, and definitely very gruesome depiction of a doubtless virgin martyr being broken on the wheel. Despite the contortions of her body, her face radiated ecstasy at her imminent unification with her Lord.

  The clock in the corner, a gilded thing replete with fat cherubs, told him he had been waiting over half an hour.

  “Mr. Royston Jones.” The lady’s voice just preceded the lady’s grand entrance.

  His name, a mere oddity among his peers, would have a different significance in her ladyship’s social circle.

  Royston stood. “Inspector Jones, if you would, Your Ladyship.”

  Lady Abernathy advanced, smooth and serene as a ship gliding on still waters. She must have been a beauty in her day and was still a handsome woman. Her waist nipped in at an angle many a young girl would envy, and her voluminous skirts were the height of fashion, if not practicality.

  “Royston Jones. Surely not related to Sir Neville Royston.”

  There was no help for it. “My paternal grandfather. Unacknowledged.”

  Her Ladyship raised an eyebrow. “Your mother was a bold one, to give you such a name.”

  He met her eyes as an equal. “My mother was a very strong woman.”

  “You are an impertinent fellow. What business do you have with me or such guests as I might have chosen to entertain?”

  No point in trying to charm her. She’d no more be charmed by him than by a starving werewolf begging scraps on the street. Intimidation was not going to work, either. His best hope was to get his questions out as quickly as possible and hope she found answering less troublesome and more amusing than having the butler forcibly remove him.

  “Mr. Winchell owns a warehouse where a girl’s body was found a few nights ago. The murder fits the pattern of the killer the papers are calling Doctor Death. In light of that fact, we are trying to establish his whereabouts for the times when all the other girls were taken.” And, as far as possible, their estimated times of deaths and when it was believed their bodies were dumped, but one did not go into such details with a lady. “Now, on the evening of March 14th, you held a charity ball. Mr. Winchell was kind enough to allow his secretary to show me his calendar.”

  “I am surprised that he was so accommodating.” Lady Abernathy’s tone made it clear that she would never dream of being so open with a lowly officer of the law.

  “Yes, most accommodating. So the sooner I can confirm the dates and times. . .”

  “You are questioning the word of a gentleman of Dr. Winchell’s stature?”

  “It’s my job to question everything, your ladyship. If you will not answer, I suppose I will have to start interviewing other guests. It should be easy enough to find them, as the donations are a matter of public record.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. “You will not harass my guests. To have my function, my name associated with a common criminal investigation!”

  “I’m more concerned with those dead girls. Surely you would like to see their killer brought to justice.”

  “Harlots and loose women. What are they to me?”

  Says the woman who prides herself on charity balls to help the less fortunate. Sweet, smiling Molly came unbidden to his thoughts. “I’ve no evidence that the killer cares a thing for morals or station, your ladyship. We believe it’s more a matter of opportunity.”

  “A proper woman would not present such an opportunity.”

  “Blackpoole attacked Miss Fairchild last year in Lord Pemberton’s own garden.”

  She snorted, a high, musical sound. “I don’t care that her father was brother to a Viscount. Miss Fairchild is hardly a proper woman.”

  He saw the moment when she realized that she had forgotten herself so far as to criticize a peer before a lowly inspector. Her look of shock and embarrassment was almost comical, mingled as it was with affront, as though he had somehow tricked her into it.

  “I’m not here to debate worthiness with you, your ladyship.” He pitched his voice softer, trying for a conciliatory note. “I’m just doing my job. If you’ll just confirm the times of Winchell’s arrival and departure, I’ll be on my way and there will be no need for me to track down your guests at the affair.” Unless she gave him reason to believe that she was lying.

  “Dr. Winchell was one of the first guests to arrive, just after Lord and Lady Pemberton. I remember seeing him on the dance floor with Sir Summerfield’s youngest daughter on the last waltz. I remember particularly because they had danced together twice before on that same evening, and I remembered thinking it would not be a bad match. She would be descending, of course, but she is the youngest daughter and has little inheritance of her own, so her prospects are limited. Still, a charming little thing, very sweet and modest.”

  Without even knowing the girl, Royston wished her very far away from Winchell. But if Lady Abernathy were telling the truth, Winchell couldn’t have been the one to dump the first dead prostitute’s body in the alley behind the chemist’s shop. The timing would have been all wrong. Unless he had an accomplice.

  No need for interviews regarding Winchell’s presence at a symposium on the creation of specialized automatons to serve disabled war veterans. He was the keynote speaker, and it had made the papers. Theoretically he might have taken a fast cab to the train station and gotten back in time for the second murder, but it would have been difficult. Wouldn’t he have waited for another night rather than throwing his bags down and rushing out to grab a girl off the streets?

  On the other hand, it was possible. He had no illusions about understanding the mind of this killer. If he did, he’d be a lot closer to catching the man.

  Winchell had been a guest lecturer at Oxford on the creation of mechanical artificial limbs for those unfortunates that lacked them by birth or by accident the night the fourth girl was found, but he had no alibi for the third girl. He had had a dinner engagement the night Molly disappeared. The timing would have been tight but possible, and he claimed to have been home alone building an automaton the night she had been killed.

  Colleagues, students, heads of charities all lauded Winchell as a man of vision, dedication, and great generosity. But Royston could not rid himself of the memory of the mechanized stuffed wolf nor the sense of creeping horror it produced in him.

  At least contact with the Oxford intelligentsia took place, of necessity, by telegram. Spending his whole day interviewing the upper crust of London set his teeth on edge. His lingering head-cold wasn’t the only thing that made his skull ache.

  “Inspector Royston Jones?” The aging grand dame who had Winchell to dinner the night Molly was taken looked down her elegant nose at him. “You couldn’t possibly be connected to
Sir Neville Royston of Beechwood?”

  Because no member of the peerage ever got a servant pregnant out of wedlock. That anyone ever talked about. “My grandfather,” he was forced to admit once again. “Unacknowledged.”

  “Oh.” The fine lady blushed, but her eyes gleamed at the wicked delight of the scandal.

  Royston had no doubt that his name would be passed around in shocked whispers at balls and teas, reminding everyone of the nearly thirty-year-old scandal of his birth and informing those too young to have heard the shameful tale. Well, if his paternal relatives got some discomfort out of the stories, at least that would be something.

  On the way home from his last interview, he took a circuitous route, getting off the omnibus at the place he’d last seen his old school friend, but Smythe was nowhere to be found. Again. Perhaps he’d moved on, either because he'd found a better corner or because he wanted to avoid Royston and the inevitable reminders of past dreams, not to mention the risk of being seen as a police informant. Royston hoped that it was so.

  Almost every full moon, a ’wolf or two was found drowned in the Thames or run down by a coach and four. Accident, suicide, murder, it was hard to tell and the Yard wasn’t about to waste resources trying to find out. Since a ’wolf that died in that form stayed in that form, most of the time the bodies went unidentified.

  Royston’s cold let up just a little more the next day. He still felt about half-dead, but no longer hoped that someone would come finish the job. A good thing, since he had another long day of interviews ahead, and that night a gallery was holding an opening for a show of Sickert’s students’ work. Almost certainly Downey would be there, and Royston intended to be there as well.

  ***

  The opening was a posh affair, ostensibly open to the public, but the liveried doorman at the entrance would surely turn away any riff-raff not discouraged by his mere presence. In his very best clothes, Royston still felt only marginally above the sort of rabble the doorman would turn away.

  He was at least as well-educated and intelligent as any of the gentlemen in bespoke frock coats who drifted from painting to painting with a studied air of cultured appraisal as the ladies on their arms blushed in affected shock at some of the more risqué scenes. Certainly he was more useful to society. But clothes made the man, or at least the money behind the clothes did.

  No matter, there was his quarry, standing by an oil painting of a woman, her form barely concealed by a sheet, back arched in either agony or ecstasy. If it was the latter, he could cite pornography convictions for far less provocative materials sold out of print shops in the low rent districts. If it was the former, than the work was even more obscene, although less legally questionable.

  “The beauty of the painting lies in its ambiguity,” Downey said to his companion, a fair-haired young man who, like Downey, dressed in a bespoke, velvet-trimmed frock coat that likely cost more than Royston’s monthly salary. “Is she writhing in pleasure? In pain? Does it matter to the observer?”

  “If the observer is a gentleman, it would matter,” Royston interrupted.

  Downey turned and looked down at Royston. He was taller than Bandon in human form, but where Bandon’s height gave him an awkward, coltish charm, Downey carried his stature as though superiority of height flowed naturally from superiority of blood.

  Royston was reminded of a thoroughbred racehorse he had encountered when Willie had charmed their way back to the stable area on a day at the races. It had bitten him. He didn’t like thoroughbreds.

  “And who might you be?” Downey’s voice dripped with old money.

  “Inspector Royston Jones, Scotland Yard.”

  Downey turned to his companion. “We must talk to Barnett. Apparently his doorman will let anyone in.” Returning to Royston, he said. “I suppose one can’t expect a simple man such as yourself to understand the intricacies of art appreciation. Is there a reason why you are disturbing our evening?

  “A former business associate of yours mentioned you in connection with Blackpoole.”

  Downey gave a thin-lipped smile. “That would be Winchell, I suppose. He was also a student of Blackpoole, though nowhere near my caliber. A mere artisan, a maker of things, with no creative soul, no appreciation for beauty.”

  “I understand that you and Blackpoole shared an appreciation of Sickert’s work.”

  “I wasn’t aware that was a crime.”

  “It’s not.” More’s the pity. “But one of his other pastimes was.”

  “You would be referring to those little murders last year. Except for the squire’s daughter, I understand the girls were no great loss. Still, the forms must be followed, I suppose. But doesn’t the Yard have better use for the taxpayers’ coin than to dredge up past crimes?”

  “Not when new murders bear a striking similarity.”

  “So you are going to interview every admirer of Sickert’s work?” Downey gestured lazily with one hand, indicating the rapidly filling gallery. “Go to it then. It looks like you’ll be a while at it. Though when Peele got his little police force, it was supposed to be to control the general ruffians and low criminals, to keep London safe for society. I’m sure he would have never won approval if anyone had dreamt it meant letting working-class dolts such as yourself annoy their betters.”

  “Some people feel that justice, to have any meaning, must apply equally to the high and the low.”

  “How very. . .liberal of you.” Downey’s emphasis made ‘liberal’ sound like both an insult and an accusation.

  “Still, I have some questions I’d like you to answer, in connection with your cotton venture with Mr. Winchell, and also in connection with—”

  “Unless you have a warrant or a subpoena, I am not interested in your questions. Leave my presence, or I will have you escorted out.”

  Royston ground his teeth, but he had no way to compel Downey’s answers. With one backward glance at the oil of the tortured girl, he left.

  ***

  More determined than ever to investigate Lord Alexander Downey, he pursued another round of interviews the next day. Arriving for his last appointment, the widowed Mrs. Rose Woodard, he very nearly bumped into Bandon and Miss Fairchild, who were on their way out. Miss Fairchild’s double life had made her an excellent actress. She gave him the same polite smile of acknowledgement at his stumbling apology as she would give to any of his station to whom she had not been properly introduced. Bandon, however, stopped in his tracks like a horse shying in place.

  “Ah, you must be the good Inspector.” Mrs. Woodard fluttered in. “I was expecting you later. Or could it really be past four o’clock.”

  Royston made a show of checking the watch on its chain, though he knew the time. “It is half-four on the dot, madam.” He forced himself to add, “Although if now is not a convenient time. . .”

  Bandon was staring at him. Honestly, did the man still suspect him of wanting to betray his werewolf status? He was a professional. He protected his sources. If Royston had any doubts of Bandon’s innocence, they fled. The man was simply not a good enough actor to pull off being the killer.

  “No, that’s fine,” she said. “Funny how time does fly. I’d no idea it was so late.”

  Easy to lose track of time when one did nothing of import all day.

  “My nephew and his fiancé were just leaving,” she said. “Have you met Mr. Bandon and Miss Fairchild?”

  Royston’s answer caught in his throat. Bloody hell, he was as bad as Bandon. Good job he’d never turned to a life of crime. He’d never survive his first interrogation.

  “The Inspector and I met after the incident at the Winter Ball," Miss Fairchild inserted smoothly. "He took tea with us one day last month—Richard was visiting and the good Inspector was pursuing a possible connection between the late Dr. Blackpoole and the current killer. Sadly, I was not able to tell him anything of importance.”

  Saved by Miss Fairchild. The world should be glad she had not chosen a life of crime. She’d b
e brilliant at it.

  “Yes, terrible business, that. All those poor girls,” Mrs. Woodard said in the same tone she might use for lamenting a picnic cancelled because of the rain.

  Bandon and Miss Fairchild took their leave, and Mrs. Woodard led him to the sitting room, which was all floral-embroidered chairs and lace doilies.

  “Downey?” she said. “Yes, lovely man. He did leave a little early from the duchess’s dinner, if I recall. Probably indigestion. That French cook of hers is atrocious. But I am quite certain he stayed to the very end of my ball in April, for he danced one of the last dances with me.”

  ***

  Royston lay awake in his lonely flat, the sounds of family life from the flats below long since stilled to the silence of night. Despite his bloody cold, despite exhaustion that made the room spin, he could not sleep. Dates and times shifted in his mind to create a kaleidoscope of opportunity. Balls and gallery openings rotated around disappearances and deaths.

  Somewhere out there the next victim slept, sound in her bed. Somewhere out there the killer prowled. It was Royston’s job to see that the two never met, and so far he was making a hash of it.

  Nine

  Catherine’s dual identity put her in a unique position to hear gossip from both the Yard and society. She didn’t like what she was hearing. Of course, members of her social class ruffled their feathers like the useless peacocks they were when a policeman came calling, worried more about their own reputations than about those poor dead girls.

  Yes, the same could be said of her own reactions—but her situation and Richard’s was unique. And she had endeavored to protect herself and her love without damaging Jones’ career. But others who cared nothing for a mere Inspector had been making veiled and not-so-veiled complaints to the man’s supervisor. The Commissioner wasn’t an idiot; he had to know how valuable Jones was to the Yard. At the same time, he valued his own position more than the responsibilities it entailed, and if Jones' earnest work caused him too many problems, he’d not hesitate to be rid of him.