His Wicked Sins

by Eve Silver

  As she descended the last few stairs, she could hear the sound of men’s voices, low at first, then a little louder, then louder still until she could hear not only the tone, but the words.

  “I have it here in the letter, sir,”—a strident tone, confrontational and somewhat nasal—”written by the constable in charge of the investigation of the Stepney killings, one Samuel Loder. And the circumstances described are horrifyingly akin to the killings of three women right here in Burndale!”

  Beth thought she knew that voice. And the name... Samuel Loder... She frowned, paused, her hand resting on the newel post at the base of the stairs, her pulse tripping an uneasy rhythm.

  The man spoke again, louder, more insistent.

  “Mr. Fairfax,” he said, “do you deny any knowledge of the events on the fifteenth of January, in the year of our Lord 1813? Do you deny that you were taken to the Shadwell Magistrate’s Office and there interviewed the day after the crime?”

  She tightened her hold and fought the unease that skittered over her skin.

  She did know that voice. It was Mr. Moorecroft, the school trustee. She felt both shocked and amazed to hear his tone so strong, his words so forceful. She had found him bland and mild each time she had met him at Burndale Academy.

  “Tell me you deny knowledge of the Black Swan Tavern,” Mr. Moorecroft demanded, his voice rising. “That you deny knowledge of the landlord, William Trotter, and his wife, both butchered in cold blood. And Ginnie George with her scalp cut from her skull. Tell me you were never seen at the Black Swan Tavern.”

  The Black Swan Tavern...

  William Trotter...

  Ginnie George...

  In the utter silence that followed his interrogation, Mr. Moorecroft’s words echoed through Beth’s thoughts, louder and louder, the content of his attack buzzing and snapping. A chilling distress bobbed up like a cork.

  He was speaking of murder. Those in Burndale, and others from a time past.

  The Black Swan Tavern...

  Beth closed her fingers tight about the newel post, struggling for balance as Mr. Moorecroft’s words sent dismay thudding through her veins, cold and slick and greasy.

  William Trotter, and his wife, butchered in cold blood. And Ginnie George with her scalp cut from her skull.

  Dizzy with the suddenness of the choking, black wave that crashed through her, Beth stood there, sick with what she heard. She swayed, the world caving in on her, crushing the very breath from her, until her chest knotted in a tight, agonizing ball.

  ...butchered in cold blood...

  The accusation in Mr. Moorecroft’s tone, and the things he said... to Griffin.

  To her lover. Her love.

  “I deny nothing,” Griffin replied, his tone calm and chill as the grave.

  Beth’s knees gave way beneath her and she sank to the floor at the foot of the stairs.

  ...butchered in cold blood...

  She was choking, dying, her heart slamming about in her chest like a feral creature desperate to tear free, her vision dim, her thoughts muddled. Panic roared through her, surging and plunging.

  Suddenly, she was back there, in the horrid little box, dark as tar, the sides close about her, the fear thick and sharp enough to cut.

  She was full to the brim with terror, so strong she could taste its bitterness, so strong that she breathed it in like air, smelled it and touched it and knew naught else.

  ...butchered in cold blood...

  They had come for her, the things she was always afraid of. The memories. The dreams.

  The truth.

  o0o

  “I deny nothing.”

  Griffin met the gaze of each of the men assembled in his library. Squire Spencer, who served as the local magistrate. Four of his men. James Dover, Ian Pinn, Mick Christie, Charles Price, all from Northallerton. They hung back, hats in hands, frowning as though they knew not what to make of Mr. Moorecroft, who stood before Griffin’s desk and in the wake of Griffin’s quiet assertion, began to reread passages from a letter that he had received from London in reply to inquiries he had made. He had been very careful to explain it all to them at the outset, before he began his recitation.

  “This passage here is of great interest...” In a monotone he read on, a litany of villainous crimes. He finished the letter and asked again about Griffin’s presence in Stepney the day of the Black Swan Tavern murders, and the presence of Richard Parsons, as well.

  With his patience grown thin and his hospitality strained, Griffin sliced through Moorecroft’s sonorous tone to ask, “Is there a specific question you wish answered, a specific accusation you make, sir? Not one buried a decade in the past, but something current and relevant to the moment.”

  From the corner came the sound of someone clearing his throat.

  “You were in Stepney the night of the murders on New Gravel Lane. And you were in London the night that a girl as found dead in Covent Garden,” Mr. Moorecroft said, belligerent, his cheeks reddening.

  “Yes, I was.” Griffin drummed his fingers in a slow roll over the top of his desk. “I was there, and I was interviewed and questioned in both incidences, as you are well aware from the content of the missive you are so taken with.” He let the silence hover, then said in a low tone, “I was interviewed at length, and I was declared quite free to go.”

  Rage churned in his gut, a lush and tempting thing. How long since he had given free rein to his anger? How long since he had felt the enveloping heat of it, the power? Both too long, and not long enough. A cool head would better serve him here. He nodded at the letter clutched in Mr. Moorecroft’s hands. “I recall Samuel Loder. And another man... Seymour... Robert Seymour. They were competent and thorough inquisitors.”

  “And they recall you, sir, as well as your companion, Mr. Richard Parsons. The letter states that a witness saw one of you drinking at the Pear Tree Inn on the night of the murders, but he could not be certain which of you it was. He stated that there was a similarity of hair color and build, and he was a bit in his cups.”

  “Yes, you have read that part. Twice,” came Squire Spencer’s voice. “Is there aught else to add?”

  Mr. Moorecroft turned and looked at the other man over his shoulder, then spun back to Griffin and said, “The letter further states that you and Parsons vouched for each other, claimed to have been together the entire time. Combined with the witness’s testimony that placed at least one of you at a location other than that of the crime, you were removed from the list of suspects.”

  “There, you see,” said Squire Spencer. “This is a waste of time. I told you that from the outset.”

  “Is it?” asked Moorecroft, his eyes never leaving Griffin’s. “And what if I were to tell you that Mr. Richard Parsons was in Northallerton at the time Sarah Ashton disappeared, and that he is here, in Burndale now that we find her dead. Do you see no relevance in that? I say there is no beast killing these women, unless it is a beast in human guise. And I say that it is no single monster doing the deed, but the two of them, in cahoots.”

  Griffin rose then from his place behind his desk, let his gaze sweep the men who stood in his library. Men he knew. Whose families he knew. For the most part, men who were level headed and even, who had not been inclined to judge and gossip when Amelia died. Each met his gaze, and in their eyes he read no judgment. Not yet. They were not convinced of Moorecroft’s accusations, but with enough rhetoric, even intelligent men could be swayed.

  His gaze swept the room. A shadow shifted in the hallway, stretching through the open door. Someone there. Someone listening.

  Moorecroft cleared his throat, and Griffin’s gaze jerked from the library door to the man’s face. He blinked, startled by what he saw etched in his features. Malice. Perhaps even hate.

  For a moment, Griffin was taken aback. He had always seen Jeremiah Moorecroft as a mild man with little fervor or flame, a man of bland features, bland temper, bland intellect. But now, something different shone in his pale eyes, the z
eal of a man on a mission, determined to see the end of his quest, regardless the cost.

  Someone said, “We must find this Parsons. Hunt him—”

  “No,” Griffin kept his tone low and flat, though he felt the rising anger, a crushing wave, felt the need to snarl the order. Which was precisely why he did not.

  It was happening again, his life spiraling out of his control, and he had no intention of letting it. Not now that he had found her, found Beth.

  He knew who she was, had probably known on some level ever since he first saw that pearl pin on her collar. It was a unique piece, one he had fleeced off a fellow in a card game at the Pear Tree Inn fifteen years in the past. He recalled it because the pearls were strangely set in the shape of a square, and because he had used it to pay his bill at the Black Swan Tavern on the very day of the murders there.

  The vagaries of fate had brought her to him, his brave, brilliant Beth. She was his. She was meant to be his. And no bumbling moron like Jeremiah Moorecroft was going to set in motion a chain of events that would rip her from him.

  Griffin was no longer a stripling lad thrust into a circumstance he could scarce fathom, green as new grass and twice and trusting. He was versed in life’s darkness, now. He knew what to do.

  “I say—” came Moorecroft’s offended protest, and Griffin almost laughed, not with mirth, but with incredulous fury, with the dark rage that swelled and bulged.

  “I will hunt him,” he said, polite, smiling, in control. His anger was alive, a writhing snarling beast, and he held it by the tail. He let the smile fade and his tone grow cold. “I know his ways. I know his thoughts. He was my boon companion for nigh on a decade, and I will find him. Any who would gainsay me, speak now.”

  Bloody Hell. Whatever Richard Parsons was, Griffin could not believe him a murderer of innocent girls. But a swarm of men bent on finding a killer might not listen to reason, might allow vigilante inclinations to rule. For the years they had spent together in Stepney, for the times Richard had kept him fed and safe, for the lessons on how to use both his fists and a knife, Griffin owed him.

  His gaze slid once more to the open library door, but there was no shadow now, no movement, no sound.

  Shifting his attention, he looked at Squire Spencer and each of his men in turn. Their eyes met his, but they said nothing, though each wore a troubled frown. Did they lend credence to Moorecroft’s accusations, or did they frown at the tension they sensed hovering in the room like a fetid mist?

  It mattered not.

  He must do this alone, and do it now, face the demons in his soul, in his past. Face the things he had done, the choices he had made. They had leaked into his present where he had no liking for them.

  At length, he looked to Moorecroft, to the glitter of his eyes and the sweat-beaded paleness of his skin.

  “We are in accord, then?” Griffin prodded, a warning woven through the question.

  Moorecroft swallowed, once, twice, then fidgeted with his gold pocket watch. Finally, he nodded.

  Griffin inclined his head and gestured to the open door. “Then I shall bid you gentlemen good evening.”

  He came round his desk and strode past them into the passage.

  Glancing about, he crossed to the newel post and stood for a moment before reaching out and closing his fingers on soft blue cloth. Draped over the post was a dark blue cashmere shawl.

  Beth.

  Bloody hell. How much had she heard?

  o0o

  Beth climbed into the cart, grateful for Mr. Waters helping hand. She was woozy and ill, her belly turning over and over until she thought she would be sick on the cobbled drive.

  “You’re shaking, miss” Mr. Waters squinted up at her, then reached into the back of the cart and dragged forth a thick blanket. With a flick of his hand, he shook it out and tossed it across her skirt. “That should help.”

  “Thank you,” Beth whispered, her mouth dry as sifted flour.

  She had forgotten that Mr. Waters was to come fetch her back to Burndale Academy. It was only happenstance that saw her in his cart now.

  Overwhelmed by what she had overheard outside Griffin’s library, she had managed to gather herself from the floor by sheer force of will. Her thoughts in turmoil, she had fled. Oh, she was honest enough to admit that, to admit that she could not bear to face those men if they walked from the room and found her trembling on the floor.

  She had wandered through the halls, sick at heart, and found herself in the front entry, just standing there, her arms crossed and held tight about her waist, as though she could hold in all the horrible thoughts and memories and confusion that buffeted her like a winter storm.

  How long had she stood thus? A minute? An hour? She had no recollection of the passage of time.

  She only knew that a footman had come to her and said that the cart had arrived to take her to Burndale. She thought she must have made some reply, though she could remember none of it.

  Like storm waves crashing on the shore, doubts and questions buffeted her.

  Griffin had been at the Black Swan tavern fifteen years past.

  How was that possible?

  He had been questioned in the Stepney murders, and the murder of the girl in Covent Garden—

  “Miss? Miss?”

  On a sharp inhalation, Beth forced herself to concentrate. Mr. Waters was standing by the cart, looking at her in that peculiar way of his.

  “I’m sorry, I—” Beth stared at him, having no idea what she meant to say. She shook her head.

  After a moment, he rounded the back of the cart, climbed up by her side and, taking up the reins, he clucked at the horse.

  Curling her fingers over the edge of the seat, Beth stared straight ahead as they went down the drive, through the massive open gate, and then turned east on the road toward the school.

  On instinct, her gaze slid to the windows on the second floor, and she searched for the one she thought was Isobel’s. Then she returned her gaze to the road, a pale ribbon unfolding before them.

  o0o

  Isobel stood in the dark, looking out her window. It was very late, and she had woken from a strange dream feeling restless and... something else. She could not seem to find the right name for that feeling, not precisely unhappy, only... not precisely happy. Which made no sense to her because ever since she had met Miss Canham—Daddy called her Beth— she had felt far nicer than she could ever recall.

  Frowning, she looked to the sky. The moon was high and bright tonight, casting a glow over the countryside, a pretty silver glow. Miss Canham made Isobel’s heart feel like that, pretty and glowing. Warm. For the first time in a very long time, she felt warm.

  And Miss Canham made Daddy smile. That made her feel warm a glowy, too.

  She pressed her nose right up against the glass, blew a breath and watched a white cloud form on the pane. Moving back, she let it dissipate, then did it again and again, until a movement in the distance caught her eye.

  She tipped her head to the side. There was a cart on the road. Her window offered no view of the drive, but between two great stands of trees, she could see a part of the road where it curved toward Burndale Academy, shining pale in the moonlight. And on the road, she could see a cart, carrying... two people.

  She leaned closer to the window.

  Yes, two people. They were too far away to say for certain who they were, but she thought one was a man and one was a woman and the cart plodded along the road at a very slow pace, listing heavily to one side, and then stopping entirely.

  The man climbed down, walked around, and disappeared from view on the far side of the cart. There was one horse, and it dropped its head, then lifted it once more. After a moment or two, the man reappeared and stopped by the side of the cart, and he spoke to the woman for a long time, gesturing and talking. She shook her head. Finally, he threw his hands in the air and turned away.

  The woman shifted on the bench, and Isobel caught a glimpse of her hair beneath her bonnet, pa
le and bright. Miss Canham. The woman on the cart was Miss Canham.

  Yes, that made sense. Isobel recalled then that Mr. Waters was to fetch Miss Canham back to the school tonight, and Isobel was to return there on the morrow.

  So the man was Mr. Waters.

  Isobel shivered. For some reason, he always made her feel prickly and odd. She thought he did not like little girls very much, for often she would find him staring at them, his eyes unfocused and distant, his expression completely blank. She hated when he watched them like that, as though he saw them but didn’t see them.

  Something about him always made her feel a little quivery and anxious.

  He had walked back a ways now, leaving Miss Canham sitting on the cart. Pausing on the road, Mr. Waters looked back, and Isobel thought again he said something because Miss Canham shook her head. Mr. Waters began to walk along the road once more, back toward the drive of Wickham Hall.

  Miss Canham stayed where she was, her arms wrapped about her waist, the lantern at the side of the coach casting a yellow glow. There was something in her posture—all curled over onto herself with her head bowed—that made Isobel unhappy. Because Miss Canham was unhappy. Isobel felt certain of it.

  For a long moment, Miss Canham stayed where she was, and then she, too, climbed down, took up the lantern and began to walk after Mr. Waters.

  Isobel was glad for that. She had no liking for Mr. Waters, but she had even less liking for Miss Canham sitting in the broken cart alone on the dark road. It seemed that Miss Canham felt quite the same way for she quickened her pace and hurried along as Mr. Waters rounded the bend.

  Then the light from Miss Canham’s lamp went out. Snuffed, just like that, the suddenness of it making Isobel’s tummy drop to her toes.

  Wrong. This felt wrong.

  Isobel knew it in her heart.

  Miss Canham disliked the dark. She never went anywhere without a candle. Many a night, Isobel had slunk through the silent hallways of the school, paused outside Miss Canham’s door. There was always a rush light burning. Isobel had seen the faint glow from beneath the door.