by Tessa Harris
“What is it?” asked the professor in a hoarse whisper. He did not need a reply. He lifted his gaze and saw for himself Captain Patrick Flynn, late of the East India Company. He was suspended by his arms ten feet above the ground. His lifeless body was dangling from the end of a rope.
Chapter 42
“Dear God!” Sir Theodisius’s eyes widened and he turned away. Patrick Flynn’s corpse lay on the dissecting table in the Hollen Street laboratory, his red hair plastered ’round his skull. But Thomas was paying particular attention to the lower limbs. The coroner’s constitution was as strong as an ox, and his stomach could, and very often did, handle much more than the average man’s, but on this occasion even he had been pushed to his limits.
“I should have warned you, sir.” Thomas watched Sir Theodisius hitch up his coat tails and place his very large behind on a stool at the far end of the room.
From the safety of his new refuge, the coroner, his brow still puckered, tried to make sense of what he had just seen. “What in God’s name happened to him? His . . .” He hesitated and Thomas jumped in for him.
“I fear he was burned, sir.” He was studying Flynn’s feet and calves. The soles were blistered and blackened. Thomas recalled the brazier he had seen in the warehouse close to where he had made the gruesome discovery. The burning coals had obviously been held to Flynn’s feet as he dangled helplessly from the rafter. Death was possibly the result of a heart attack, but he could not be sure until he had examined the corpse more thoroughly.
“You mean he was tortured?” asked Sir Theodisius, his voice an octave higher than usual.
Thomas saw no point in softening the truth. “His feet were chained together,” he said as he cut through the iron links with a tool usually reserved for the trickiest of amputations, “and then hot coals were applied.”
Sir Theodisius winced at the thought. “Presumably so that he would divulge information?”
Thomas never liked to presume anything, although on this occasion the coroner, he felt, made a fair assumption. “Yes, that is likely.”
“So whoever did this wanted the diamond?”
Thomas nodded as he snapped a link and the fetters fell away from around Flynn’s charred feet. “It is a possibility. Professor Carruthers tells me this burning is a common torture in India.”
“Ah, the professor.” Carruthers’s name appeared to stick in the coroner’s craw. “He seems to be well versed in such methods, if I’m not much mistaken.”
Thomas paused, taken aback by Sir Theodisius’s tone. “You suspect him of involvement in all this?”
The coroner pushed out his bottom lip, then said: “I left him singing the praises of the Indian way of doing things. He is taking tea with Lydia and the doctor in your drawing room, dear fellow.”
Thomas was fully aware of the professor’s admiration for many aspects of Indian culture. “He is what I believe you call an Orientalist, sir,” said Thomas. “He has begun translating several ancient texts into English.”
Sir Theodisius gave a skeptical grunt. “Do you not think it a coincidence that Sir Montagu’s murder, the diamond theft, and now all these ghastly killings have all occurred since his arrival?”
Such an aspersion did not surprise Thomas—the thought had also occurred to him—although he felt the coroner’s candor needed to be challenged. He turned to face Sir Theodisius. “Do you base your accusations on anything other than coincidence, sir?”
The coroner pulled a sour face. “There is just something about the fellow that I do not trust,” he said bluntly.
Thomas knew what his old friend meant, but he did not let on. He, too, had seen an unnatural intensity in the professor’s eye. At first he put it down to his belief in a different type of religious asceticism or spirituality; what was that he practiced—meditation? There were times, when Oliver Carruthers had been unaware he was being observed, when Thomas had caught him as if in another dimension, one that transcended time and place. It had occurred to him that this devotion might yet mask a deeper truth. The thought had started to lurk in the shadows of his mind long before Sir Theodisius had voiced his own suspicions. They could not be discounted. And then there were the nervous twitches. Thomas knew these often developed after experiencing a psychological problem or an emotional trauma or stress. Despite such suspicions, Thomas would not be rushed to judgment.
“You know full well, sir, we need facts before we make accusations,” he admonished, turning back to the corpse. “And the fact is that I need to open up Flynn here to find out exactly what killed him.”
Sir Theodisius glanced at the outstretched body on the table and looked slightly bilious at the thought. He cleared his throat. “Then I will let you get to work,” he said. “Besides, I do not wish to leave Lydia in the professor’s company any longer than I have to.”
Thomas looked up from the table. “I fear I will be a while here,” he called to the coroner as he lumbered toward the door. Before he began his work, Thomas arched his aching back and as he distanced himself a little from the corpse, his eyes suddenly latched onto something out of place. Flynn’s neck. It was an area he had not yet properly examined. And there was something odd about it. The captain’s body had many secrets to yield up, he was convinced of it, and this might be one of them. He squinted at the throat and the large bulge at the side. A swollen gland, perhaps? A distended thyroid? He felt the lump. The protrusion was hard. He frowned and picked up his scalpel, directing the blade at the trachea. He made a deep incision at the edge of the protuberance, then folded back the flesh. What he saw caused him to gasp out loud in amazement. There, lodged not in his windpipe, but in Patrick Flynn’s esophagus, was a large diamond. The captain had choked to death.
“Sir Theo!” cried Thomas.
The coroner, halfway out of the door, turned. Peering toward the far end of the laboratory, he saw Thomas walking toward him. He narrowed his eyes, then widened them.
“No, sir,” said Thomas, fast approaching, brandishing something in his hand. “Your eyes do not deceive you.”
Thomas drew level with him and lifted up the forceps that held in their grasp a gemstone the size of a plover’s egg.
“The diamond!” exclaimed Sir Theodisius. “Where did you find it?”
“In Flynn’s throat,” replied Thomas bluntly. “It killed him.”
The coroner’s forehead crumpled. “You mean . . . ?”
“I mean it was shoved into his mouth and he was made to try and swallow it, sir, knowing that it would cause asphyxiation.”
“Good Lord!” Sir Theodisius shook his head in disbelief as his eyes remained fixed on the bloody gemstone. After a moment he asked: “But if Flynn was not tortured for the diamond, then why . . . ?” The coroner had come to the nub of the matter.
“That is the question we must strive to answer, sir, and I suspect the answer lies behind all four murders,” said Thomas. Originally he had thought that, once he found the diamond, he would be able to make a clear judgment on the murderer. But this discovery had changed everything. Now the imperative was to find the motive that he was sure linked all the brutal murders. Then, and only then, could he hope to find the crazed killer.
Chapter 43
“So Flynn’s murder makes four,” ventured Dr. Carruthers, tapping his stick on the floor four times, as if he needed to press home the point. “And all killed in a most vile way.”
Tea was being taken in the drawing room, as Sir Theodisius had informed Thomas. Once again Sajiv had made an infusion and was serving Lydia, Dr. Carruthers, and his brother with great ceremony, but no one was in the mood for polite chitchat. Earlier in the day, not only had Thomas been obliged to break the news to Lydia of Patrick Flynn’s murder, he’d had to inform her that Nicholas Lupton had been killed, too. As a result the occasion was tempered with shock and laced with a certain sense of fear.
The professor clearly disapproved of his elder brother’s forthrightness. He shot a look toward Lydia and saw the pained expr
ession on her face. “You must not talk so in front of your guest, brother,” he chided him.
Dr. Carruthers shook his head, apologetically. “Forgive me, my dear. I quite forgot my manners.” He reached for his tea bowl, and Sajiv, watching intently, stepped forward and guided it to his lips.
“Ah, thank you.” The old anatomist smiled. “Your man is most attentive, Oliver.”
The professor nodded and looked approvingly at his servant. “Yes. Sajiv has been with me almost nine years now. Loyalty and service are very much part of the Indian culture,” he replied before sipping his own tea.
Lydia agreed. “Yes, my late husband, Michael—” She paused and began again with proper formality. “Captain Farrell, that is, always spoke highly of his sepoys.” Her eyes slid toward Sajiv, who was at the grate, boiling another kettle of water.
A slightly awkward lull ensued as the professor stirred his tea.
“Yes. India really is a fascinating country.” He paused, as if framing a thought. “I have an idea,” he said suddenly, looking up from his dish. “Why do we not go and see the elephant in St. James’s Park?”
Lydia’s face broke into a bemused smile. “An elephant?”
“Yes, by Jove,” piped up the old doctor. “Paraded daily, apparently.”
“Then I am sure my son would love to see such a sight. As would I,” replied Lydia.
“What sight might that be, my dear?” The door opened wide to allow Sir Theodisius to shamble inside and slump into the nearest chair. It groaned in protest under his weight.
Lydia spoke across the room. “Professor Carruthers was saying there is an elephant that is walked often in St. James’s Park. I thought Richard might find it amusing. The poor child deserves some diversion,” she suggested. “I am such poor company at the moment.”
“Tush, tush, my dear. You must not blame yourself for the calamitous events that have occurred,” Sir Theodisius assured her. “We are all most perturbed by them.” As he spoke, the attentive servant put down a tea bowl by his side, but he waved it away. “No tea,” he snapped. “I need a brandy.” Then, as an afterthought he added: “And biscuits. Where are the biscuits I was promised?”
“You are out of sorts, dear Theo,” ventured Dr. Carruthers with a frown.
“I fear I never find your laboratory very amusing, sir,” he countered, sliding a sideways look at Lydia. Had she not been there, he would have added: “Especially with a corpse in it.”
“Ah!” said the old doctor. “You have been with Thomas. How is he faring with the latest delivery?”
Sir Theodisius nodded, but wary of offending Lydia’s sensibilities, he skirted the question. Instead he replied in vague terms. “There has been an interesting development,” he conceded, but added: “Yet I fear we are no nearer to getting to the bottom of this unholy mystery, sir.” He reached up for the brandy that the professor’s servant handed him. “I regret to say we may never know who killed Sir Montagu, or even why.”
It took another hour for Thomas to finish the autopsy on Patrick Flynn’s body and to ensure that it was in a satisfactory state to be received back into the custody of the Westminster coroner’s office. Two burly ruffians were sent to collect it. By the time the young anatomist had scrubbed away the blood from under his fingernails and donned his topcoat, it was almost time for Sir Theodisius and Lydia to leave. Exhausted, he walked into the drawing room to find them about to make their exits.
Professor Carruthers turned and smiled as he saw Thomas approach. “Ah, Dr. Silkstone,” he said, “your guests are about to depart. Sajiv has called their carriage to the front.”
Thomas, catching Lydia’s eye, tilted his head. “That is a great shame,” he said, smiling at her. She returned his smile, but the exchange was short-lived.
“Ah! Thomas,” barked Sir Theodisius, “a word, if I might.” He beckoned the doctor toward him and looked very earnest. Thomas obeyed and followed the coroner out into the hallway.
“You have news, sir?” he asked. He wondered if Sir Arthur Warbeck had uncovered something in Boughton and sent word during his short absence in the laboratory.
Sir Theodisius shook his head. “Not exactly,” he began, “but seeing the diamond today jogged my memory.”
“Oh?” Thomas arched a brow.
“Yes. ’Tis about Farrell.”
“Farrell?”
The coroner directed his gaze toward the drawing room door to ensure it was shut. “I recall he came to me a few months before the sixth earl’s death. Told me he had a business proposition that might interest me.” He shifted his weight. “Said that it was widely thought that the diamond mines at Golconda were all but exhausted.” Thomas was aware that avaricious eyes were now turned on South America as a new source of diamonds. “But he told me he knew otherwise.”
The doctor’s eyes widened in surprise. He leaned in. “Did he indeed?”
Sir Theodisius nodded. “Said he had a map, an ancient map that showed where there were more reserves of diamonds. Bigger and even more valuable than any found before.”
“And he wanted you to invest in an expedition?” ventured Thomas.
The coroner’s jowls flapped as he nodded. “Exactly so.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said that such a venture was too risky for me, but I wished him luck elsewhere.”
“And you heard no more of it?”
“No. I thought no more of it, either, until I saw you holding that infernal stone.” He lifted his hands up in a show of revulsion.
Thomas nodded. “You are right. It puzzled me why Flynn stole the diamond, then supposedly returned to murder Sir Montagu. We now know that whoever killed him was looking for something other than the stone. Perhaps it was this map.”
“’Tis my thinking, too, Silkstone,” replied the coroner. “But where to start to look?” Sir Theodisius paused for a moment; then his eyes latched onto the wall clock in the hall. “Sir Montagu’s will,” he said suddenly.
Thomas frowned. “What of it?”
“I am to accompany Lydia to the attorney’s office this afternoon for the reading,” he said. “Perhaps it might contain something”—he broke off in search of the word—“interesting?”
Thomas nodded. “Perhaps,” he replied, “because at the moment, sir, I am at a complete loss as to where to turn next.”
Chapter 44
In the morning room in South Street, Marian Hastings sat working on her embroidery. She was alone and bathed in the warm sunlight that flooded through the full-length casements when the door suddenly flew open and in rushed Bibby Motte. She was looking most distressed.
“My dear, vatever is ze matter?” asked Marian, putting down her sewing frame. “Sit down, please.” She patted the chaise longue where she herself sat, but her companion declined. She was close to tears and began pacing the room.
“He’s dead,” she wailed, clutching her handkerchief and shaking her head.
For a moment, Marian Hastings froze. “Your husband?”
Bibby Motte shot her a horrified glance. “My God, no,” she countered. “Although he may as well be now,” she added. Her shoulders began to undulate in sobs.
“Zen who is dead, my dear?” Marian rose and walked over to her, putting an arm around her friend.
“Captain Flynn,” she bleated.
“Flynn?” repeated Marian. Now she understood. With Flynn’s death, any hope of raising the money to pay Thomas Motte’s creditors had evaporated. He would remain in jail in India.
“How? How did he die?”
Bibby looked her companion in the eye. “He was murdered.”
A gasp escaped Marian’s lips. “Not . . . ?” She knew that her friend had engaged a man to track down the errant captain.
The younger woman shook her head. “I do not think so.”
“You do not think so?” Marian repeated, a note of frustration in her voice. Her obvious shock prompted another flurry of tears from her friend.
“There
has been no word from Mr. Lupton,” Bibby told her between snivels.
Marian’s chin jutted out. “So you think he vould have told you if he had murdered Flynn?” She was finding it impossible to hide her exasperation. She walked to the mantelpiece, then back to the window. “And vat does ze major say about this?”
Bibby looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes. “He is unhappy.”
“Unhappy?” repeated Marian incredulously. “Unhappy? I should say he vill be unhappy ven his name is linked to ze murder of a former East India Company man and one of Philip Francis’s henchmen to boot.” She knew of the major’s part in arranging Flynn’s apprehension. “If vord gets out zere will be ze scandal.” She dropped back onto the chaise longue at the very thought of all the gossip and recriminations that would surely follow. If word spread that one of Warren Hastings’s closest allies was linked to a murder, his political enemies would surely see it as valuable capital. The possibility of the governor-general’s impeachment would come a step closer. For a moment Marian sat in silence, listening to the intermittent sobs of her friend; then she rose. “Ve must take action,” she said decisively.
“Action?” echoed Bibby, looking up from her handkerchief.
“If Flynn vas found murdered, zere may vell be a postmortem.”
“I do not understand.” Bibby narrowed her glassy eyes so that more tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. She watched as her friend strode purposefully over to the fireplace.
